Australia must ensure new coal projects do not harm children
Australia’s government will need to ensure that children are not harmed by its decisions to approve coal projects in a landmark ruling that could have big implications for the country’s fossil fuels industry.
The decision by Australia’s Federal Court on Thursday, which followed a case initiated by eight schoolchildren and an 86-year-old nun, came even though it dismissed a request for an injunction to stop Canberra approving a controversial coal mine.
The applicants had asked the court to prevent Sussan Ley, Australia’s minister for environment, from making a decision on whether to grant approvals for the Whitehaven coal project. The mine in New South Wales is expected to produce 10m tonnes of coal annually over 26 years, enough to generate 100m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Justice Mordecai Bromberg agreed that Ley had a duty to take “reasonable care” not to cause Australian children personal injury when exercising her powers to grant mine approvals.
He added that evidence demonstrates children are extremely vulnerable to “severe harms” caused by climate change. Thousands would suffer premature death from either heat stress or due to bushfire smoke if temperatures rose 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, said Justice Bromberg.
“It will largely be inflicted by the inaction of this generation of adults, in what might fairly be described as the greatest intergenerational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next,” he added.
Whitehaven welcomed the decision to dismiss the injunction on the government approving its mine.
“The company sees a continuing role for high quality coal in contributing to global CO2 emissions reduction efforts while simultaneously supporting economic development in our near region,” the group said.
The government said it would study the judgment.
Legal experts said the establishment of a legal principle that the government held a “duty of care” to protect children from the impact of global warming represented a victory for campaigners.
“This is a historic win, which will ensure government ministers and even companies have to consider their duty of care to children when making decisions on projects linked to climate change,” said Chris McGrath, an expert on climate litigation.
Campaigners in Australia and elsewhere have pursued a flurry of climate-related cases seeking to block the development of fossil fuel projects. On Wednesday, a Netherlands court ordered Royal Dutch Shell to accelerate its emissions reduction efforts.
Tim Stephens, a professor at the University of Sydney law school, said the Australian ruling was one of the most important judgments ever delivered on climate litigation in the country.
“This is part of a global jigsaw of climate litigation that is growing by the day,” he said. “Now we have a judgment on common law ‘duty of care’, we have plenty of judgments on administration law and prudent decision making and we have got human rights cases.”
The court case was led by a group of high school students aged between 14 and 17 and Brigid Arthur, a nun who acted as their litigation guardian.
“I’m thrilled,” said Ava Princi, a 17-year-old student and one of the litigants. “We understand this is the first time a court of law, anywhere in the world, has ordered a government to specifically protect young people from the catastrophic harms of climate change.”