Nana Flint
Right. The High Court has finally answered my other favourite question. Whose coal is it once it's burned?
On the record: three judges to two, the court knocked back MACH Energy's appeal over the Mount Pleasant expansion near Muswellbrook. A residents' group, DAMSHEG, had argued the Independent Planning Commission never properly weighed the emissions from burning that coal overseas. The court agreed. The planners have to consider conditions that minimise all greenhouse gas emissions, scope three included, which is the coal that leaves on a ship and comes back as weather.
The numbers, because I always want the numbers. 444 million tonnes of coal to 2048, nearly double the current rate. Over 870 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent when it's burned, roughly twice what the whole country puts out in a year. MACH says clear legal principles benefit everyone and it'll keep pursuing its options. Queensland's miners are already nervous.
My two bob: for forty years the answer to who's responsible has been somebody else, somewhere else. Five judges just said no, it's the people who dug it up and the people who signed the permit. I'll be watching how the next approval reads.
Source: ABC News, 2026-10-07
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