The Carmichael Coal and Rail Project in Queensland have been given the green light from Federal Environmental Minister, Greg Hunt. The $16.5 billion dollar project will put 60 animal species at risk, endanger our Great Barrier Reef and produce four times the fossil fuel emissions of New Zealand.
The Abbott Government is definitely making its mark (black mark) on our environment but for all the wrong reasons. The project is proposed by Indian Company, Adani, who have had many previous compliance issues on their very bad track record.
“History will look back on the Abbott Government’s decision today as an act of climate criminality,” said Senator Larissa Waters, Australian Greens environment spokesperson. “The Abbott Government’s claims that it has put ‘stringent’ conditions on the approval are a joke given the Auditor General last month found that the federal environment department is so under-resourced it is failing to monitor and enforce environmental conditions. Adani has a track record of non-compliance with environmental conditions in India – why take the risk with our climate and Great Barrier Reef?”
There are so many reasons why this project should not be allowed to go ahead and not many reasons to support it. The mine will be Australia’s largest coal mine taking up 28 000 hectares – 7 x times the size of Sydney harbour. It will have six open cut pits and five underground mines. Overver 20 000 hectares of native bushland will be cleared and the project will endanger many animal species. It will emit 120 million tonnes of CO2 each year and use 12 billion litres of water – that equivalent to an Olympic size swimming pool every 2 hours! Dredging and dumping to make way for coal ships will cause irreparable damage to our Great Barrier Reef, the wetland animals the port terminal will be next to as well as to the World Heritage Area and Marine Park. For more, see the Greenpeace website for 10 reasons why the Carmichael Mine is a bad idea.
“The Abbott and Newman governments are sacrificing the 63 000 jobs that rely on a healthy Reef all for the sake of the private profits of an overseas mining company,” say the Greens. “The notion that anyone will want to buy our coal in 60 years is economic lunacy, so this project is economically foolhardy as well as an environmental disaster.”
It is not hard to show that this develop is redundant so why is our Government approving it?