Too risky: stop Adani’s mine from harming the Great Barrier Reef
- by: Climate Council Australia
- recipient: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Ms Sharon Warburton, Chair of the Board of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility
The Great Barrier Reef has experienced two years of back-to-back coral bleaching driven by record ocean temperatures. And now Adani’s massive mine is threatening to cause even more harm to our World Heritage treasure.
Adani is close to starting construction work on their mine site in Queensland, and a decision on the $1 billion dollars of public funding could be made any day now.
We’ve worked together with a team of top scientists and experts to analyse the health, climate and economic risks of Adani’s project, and the evidence is clear - this mine must be stopped.
Can you add your voice to this open letter from leading Australian scientists and citizens urgently calling for no public funding for Adani’s mine?
Dear Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Ms Sharon Warburton, Chair of the Board of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
We are a group of leading Australian scientists, researchers and experts wishing to draw your attention to the serious risks to the climate, public health and North Queensland tourism posed by Adani’s Carmichael coal mine.
Climate risks
The Carmichael mine will be Australia’s largest coal mine with a potential lifetime of up to 60 years. If the Galilee Basin were a country on its own, it would emit more than 1.3 times Australia’s current annual emissions from all sources and rank in the top 15 emitting countries in the world.
New coal mines are fundamentally at odds with global efforts to tackle climate change effectively and protect Australia from dangerous and intense extreme weather events and the destruction of our most iconic ecosystems.
The Great Barrier Reef is particularly at risk, having already experienced two consecutive years of mass coral bleaching. Coal expansion will drive further warming of the oceans, which increases the risk of extreme bleaching to Australia’s reefs.
Economic risks
New coal mines, such as the Carmichael coal mine, undermine the vibrancy of other major Australian industries, including agriculture and reef tourism, that rely on water resources, land and healthy ecosystems.
As the strong global trend away from coal to renewable energy gathers momentum, Australia’s thermal coal export industry future looks increasingly shaky. Seventeen major banks worldwide have stated they will not fund the Carmichael mine based on both its lack of economic viability and environmental impact.
Health risks
The risks that coal, and specifically this mine, pose to human health are extremely serious. Burning of coal is a major source of particulate air pollution (fine particles that enter the lungs) and caused 4.2 million deaths globally in 2015. Carmichael coal would contribute to this disturbing global health threat.
In India, where the coal from Adani’s Carmichael mine in Queensland will most likely be exported, an estimated 80,000-115,000 people already die from coal pollution each year. The health impacts of coal mining are also being felt here in Australia, with the recent re-emergence of the life threatening ‘black lung’ (coal workers’ pneumoconiosis) in Queensland, with 21 reported cases. Carmichael coal is NOT “clean” by any definition of the word, and mining and burning it will continue to drive serious health impacts here and in India.
We the undersigned urge you to consider these insurmountable economic, health, and climate risks which make the project unsuitable for Australian Government support and/or public funding.
Professor Hilary Bambrick
Queensland University of Technology
Climate Council
Health Expert
Professor Tim Flannery
University of Melbourne
Climate Council
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
Global Change Institute
University of Queensland
Professor Lesley Hughes
Macquarie University
Climate Council
Professor Will Steffen
Australian National University
Climate Council
Adjunct Professor Charlie Vernon
University of Queensland
James Cook University
Gerry Hueston
Business expert
Climate Council
Former President of BP Australasia
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