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NY Times, Oct. 15 2017
Australia Debates: Does a Warming Planet Really Need More Coal?
By JACQUELINE WILLIAMS
ABBOT POINT, Australia — In a desolate corner of northeastern Australia,
about 100 miles from the nearest town, a grassy stretch of prime grazing
land sits above a vein of coal so rich and deep that it could be mined
for decades.
The Australian government is considering a proposal to build one of the
world’s largest coal mines in this remote locale, known as the Galilee
Basin, where acacia and eucalyptus trees grow wild between scattered creeks.
An Indian conglomerate, the Adani Group, has asked for a
taxpayer-financed loan of as much as $800 million to make the enormous
project viable, promising to create thousands of jobs in return.
But the plan has met intense opposition in Australia and abroad,
focusing attention on a question with global resonance: Given the threat
of climate change and the slowing global demand for coal, does the world
really need another giant mine, especially at the public’s expense?
Adani has proposed building six open-cut pits and five underground
complexes capable of producing as much as 66 million tons of coal a
year. New infrastructure to support the mine — a rail line to the coast
and an expanded port — would also make it economically feasible to
extract coal from at least eight additional sites in the Galilee Basin.
That could more than double coal output in Australia, which already
produces more coal than any other nation except China, the United States
and India. About 88 percent of the 487 million tons of coal mined
annually in Australia is exported.
For many environmentalists, what happens in this mining case is a test
of the world’s commitment to fighting climate change. Its failure would
register as an unmistakable sign of an international shift away from the
fossil fuels behind climate change. But if Australia agrees to subsidize
the mine — even though several commercial banks have shunned it — the
project would demonstrate the lasting allure and influence of the coal
industry.
“How it can be constructed — at a time when the whole world is committed
to move away from fossil fuels — is madness that most people just can’t
understand,” said Geoffrey Cousins, president of the Australian
Conservation Foundation.
The project, known as the Carmichael mine, has provoked strong
resistance in part because of its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, a
natural wonder that is already dying because of overheated seawater
blamed on climate change. Adani plans to deliver most of the coal to
India on shipping routes that critics say would further damage the
ecosystem of the world’s greatest system of reefs.
The debate over the mine has dominated headlines in Australia for months
and fueled one of the most fervent environmental campaigns in the
nation’s history. Protests have grown in size and frequency, and polls
show Australians who oppose the mine outnumber those who support it by
more than two-to-one.
A group of Indigenous Australians is also challenging Adani’s claim to
the land.
But Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull supports the project, and it just
needs financing to proceed. A government agency established to support
private-sector infrastructure investment is reviewing Adani’s loan
request, and the company has said it is also lining up money overseas.
“This is a tipping point,” said Maree Dibella, a coordinator of the
North Queensland Conservation Council, referring to the mine’s role in
the global campaign against coal.
Around the Galilee Basin, where a population of less than 20,000 is
scattered across an area the size of Britain, opinion is divided.
Bruce Currie, a cattle farmer who lives near the site and has traveled
to India to investigate Adani’s record, said he is worried the mine will
drain too much groundwater, calling it “yet another burden our small
business has to bear.”
Several hours drive north in Collinsville, one of the area’s oldest
mining communities, Roderick Macdonald, 57, a retired miner, said Adani
had come to the town promising to build mining camps and employ local
people.
“From what I can hear and see, Mr. Adani’s going to do nothing for this
town,” Mr. Macdonald said, referring to Gautam Adani, the billionaire
founder and chairman of the company.
But others in the region are more hopeful. Mining accounts for as much
as 7 percent of the Australian economy, and the northeastern state of
Queensland, where the Galilee Basin lies, has suffered a downturn in
recent years because of slowing demand for natural resources, especially
from China.
“I need jobs for Queenslanders,” said the state’s premier, Annastacia
Palaszczuk, of the Adani proposal.
Towns along the coast have been vying for potential contracts with the
mine for maintenance work, construction and other services. “People are
really rooting for this because of the economy,” said Stephen Smyth, a
local union leader, who started working in underground mines at 17.
The Carmichael mine, he added, is “offering that thing of hope, hope for
a better life, secure employment and better wages so people can live a
reasonable life.”
Adani has said the project will create as many as 10,000 jobs in the
region. But a consultant hired by Adani said the employment claim was
overstated in court testimony given in a case where a conservation group
was looking to block the mine. Critics have also noted that other mines
in Australia may need to scale back production if Carmichael opens,
meaning job losses elsewhere.
A host of Australian celebrities — including the rock band Midnight Oil
— and international groups have urged Mr. Turnbull to kill the project,
arguing that such a large mine would violate Australia’s commitment in
the Paris climate accord to work to prevent temperatures from rising
more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
In April, Mr. Turnbull met with Mr. Adani and later told reporters that
the mine “will create tens of thousands of jobs,” adding, “Plainly,
there is a huge economic benefit from a big project of this kind,
assuming it’s built and it proceeds.”
If Adani and other mines in the Galilee Basin go ahead and reach maximum
production, coal from the region would release as much as 700 million
tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, or nearly as much
as Germany generates in emissions, according to a study by Greenpeace.
Australia has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 26
percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, but the coal it sells
to India and other countries would not be counted in its total.
It is unclear if India even needs the extra coal. After years of big
increases in coal consumption, the growth rate slowed last year as the
nation has improved energy efficiency and shifted to solar, wind and
hydropower. India’s coal-fired power plants are running below 60 percent
of capacity, a record low, experts say.
That has raised questions about the economics of the Carmichael mine.
Australia’s four largest banks have publicly ruled out financing it, and
analysts have argued that the mine would face stiff competition from
local sources of coal in India and elsewhere.
Globally, coal consumption actually decreased by 1.7 percent in 2016,
according to a BP report on energy trends, leading the company to
declare that “the fortunes of coal appear to have taken a decisive break
from the past.”
Critics worry Adani could default on the government’s loan or flood the
market, lowering prices worldwide and allowing coal to make a comeback
as an energy source.
The Adani Group’s business record has also drawn scrutiny. The
conglomerate, whose interests span natural resources, logistics, energy
and agriculture, has faced allegations in India of environmental
degradation, money laundering and bribery, but it has denied any illegal
activity.
Adani leased about 460 square miles of land in the Galilee Basin nearly
a decade ago. It can take two to three days to get to the site from the
coast, with the last leg of the trip on unpaved roads. Surveying, soil
testing and design work has begun, including on an airstrip, mining
camp, access roads and the rail link, said Ron Watson, a spokesman for
Adani Australia.
Coal from the mine would be transported by rail about 240 miles through
grazing land to Abbot Point, the nation’s most northern deep water coal
port, which is already used to ship coal to China, Japan and South
Korea. Adani has signed a 99-year lease of the port and plans an
expansion that would allow it to double the amount of coal going through.
From the air, the piles of coal and equipment at Abbot Point are a
striking contrast with the turquoise waters of the Coral Sea. The
closest coral of the Great Barrier Reef is just 12 miles away.
A 30-minute drive southeast from Abbot Point is the seaside town of
Bowen, where parts of the Nicole Kidman epic “Australia” was filmed a
decade ago during better times. Now, the streets are dotted with “For
Sale” signs beyond the main drag.
“We had miners living in the high parts of town,” or the most expensive
neighborhoods, said Mike Brunker, who represents Bowen in the Whitsunday
regional council and is a supporter of the mine for the jobs it is
projected to bring. “That was the boom time. They had to leave, they had
to go to other mines, or they’ve just gone broke.”
Further up the coast is Townsville, home to Adani’s headquarters in
Australia, where protesters sometimes congregate and residents exemplify
the conflicts felt by many in the region.
“You don’t know what’s good for us,” one man snapped at an environmental
activist conducting a survey recently.
Not too long after, another resident told the activist, “I oppose the
mine even though I applied for a job.”
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