Lock the Gate Alliance has accused the NSW Department of Planning of undermining the state’s effort to address climate change and inflicting harm on its people and economy as a new application to expand a controversial coal mine is publicly released for comment while a landmark court case is underway.
Key points
- Last year, a landmark court decision on Mount Pleasant mine determined that the local impacts of greenhouse emissions must be considered in NSW coal mine decisions.
- That decision is now under appeal to the High Court, and in the meantime Mount Pleasant has made a separate application to expand the same mine.
- Lock the Gate is slamming the NSW Department of Planning for helping the mine to expand by inviting public comment. The mine will worsen local climate impacts and the cost of living.
The NSW Court of Appeal in July last year overturned the 2022 approval of a large expansion of the Mount Pleasant coal mine, on the doorstep of Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley. The Court found that the Independent Planning Commission had failed to consider the local impacts of climate change arising from the mine’s local and global greenhouse gas pollution. The company has been granted leave to appeal that decision, and is currently before the High Court.
Lock the Gate spokesperson Georgina Woods said: "By helping this coal mine expand, the Department is harming the people of New South Wales who are already dealing with increasing bills and escalating dangers from climate change fuelled extreme weather.
"The Court of Appeal’s decision made it clear that the local impacts of climate change caused by the downstream greenhouse pollution from NSW coal have to be considered by planning authorities. Those impacts are severe, complex and irreversible and they are being made worse by every tonne of pollution enabled by the Department of Planning."
In December, the NSW Net Zero Commission advised that “Continued extensions or expansions to coal mining in NSW are not consistent with the emissions reduction targets in the Climate Change Act or the Paris Agreement temperature goals it gives effect to.”
The NSW Government has not responded to those findings and today, the Department of Planning is inviting public comment on 'Modification 8' of the Mount Pleasant coal mine, which would allow the mining of an extra 78 million tonnes of coal from the site, despite the ongoing legal proceedings.
If approved, this modification will enable the emission, within NSW, of a million extra tonnes of greenhouse pollution over the next five years.
Ms Woods said: “We hear all the time that climate change is a global problem, but it has local impacts and it is growing worse because of decisions by local authorities. Every tonne of coal and every tonne of greenhouse pollution is an act of self-harm to the people of New South Wales, driving up bills, putting homes and lives in the path of danger and our entire way of life in jeopardy.”
"The NSW Department of Planning has categorically failed to respond to the danger of escalating climate change and keeps on pouring fuel on the fire by approving coal mine expansions."
The NSW government has approved eight coal mine expansions since the creation of the Climate Change (Net Zero Future) Act in 2023.