Australian coal mine blocked over climate impact

One of Australia's environment courts has ruled against the country's largest independent coal producer, saying that its assessment of the impacts of a new mine should have included an assessment of its impact on climate change.
The campaign group Greenpeace has called the ruling "historic". Greenpeace has been demonstrating against the proposal of the Centennial Coal Company to build a new mine in New South Wales.
Justice Nicola Pain ruled on Monday that the environmental assessment, previously approved by the government, was void. She cited "a sufficiently proximate link" between coal mining and greenhouse gas emissions for the latter to be considered in the mine's assessment.
The case was brought by 26-year old student Peter Gray, who sued Centennial Coal and the New South Wales Department of Planning.
Gray argued that approval of the Anvil Hill mine should take into account the impact the mine would have on climate change, including emissions caused when the coal is burned later in foreign countries.
"Disastrous decision"
According to the Australian Associated Press, environment minister Ian Campbell called the decision "disastrous". He said: "If we think we're going to solve the problem by closing down fossil fuel industries, we are actually going to destroy any chance of a solution. It would allow the effective closing of every coal mine in the country."
Centennial Coal's managing director said on Tuesday that his company has responded to the court's ruling by preparing a document which "comprehensively deals with the downstream greenhouse gas impacts of the project".
Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter, and decided not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 (see Coal-rich Australia rejects Kyoto Protocol). According to Greenpeace, burning the 10.5 million tonnes of coal that would be produced annually at Anvil Hill would emit up to 27 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. That would be equivalent to 8% of Australia's entire carbon dioxide emissions for 2002.