PLANS by mining company MACH Energy to substantially expand its Mount Pleasant coal mine in the Hunter Valley have stalled.
The NSW Court of Appeal has found that the Independent Planning Commission’s approval of the mine’s expansion in 2022 was legally flawed.
The approval would have allowed the mine to continue operating until 2048, and extract an additional 247 million tonnes of coal.
The Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group (The Group) challenged the Planning Commission’s decision in the Land and Environment Court arguing that the Commission had failed to properly consider the climate impacts of the mine’s expansion.
Justice John Robson dismissed their challenge, but the Group successfully appealed.
Although the Commission had accepted the project’s emissions would contribute to global climate change, the Court of Appeal’s Justice Julie Ward found there was nothing in its reasons to indicate it had considered the impacts on the local environment.
“The Commission’s obligation to consider the likely impacts of the development on the natural and built environment in the locality of the mine… required it to address the potentially adverse effects of climate change in the locality,” Justice Ward said.
“This obligation could not be discharged by general references to the effects of global warming on the planet generally.”
Greens MP Sue Higginson welcomed the ruling, “This decision is a significant legal breakthrough and will send shockwaves through the planning system.”
“The Court has ruled that the government bears responsibility for the emissions that they create as a result of the fossil fuel projects they approve.”
One of the cases cited by the Court of Appeal was the 2019 decision to knock back plans by Gloucester Resources to establish the Rocky Hill coal mine south of Gloucester.
“This decision builds on the… Rocky Hill case where the Land and Environment Court refused approval for that coal mine including on the basis of climate harm,” said Elaine Johnson, the solicitor for the Group.
“This decision will ensure that all future coal proposals will need to explain why they should go ahead despite the very serious localised climate harms linked with continued fossil fuel expansion.”
The application for the mine’s approval will return to the Land and Environment Court for further review.
By John WATTS
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