CoalWatch is an interactive resource that tracks the coal industry’s expansion plans and helps builds a movement to stop these polluting moves.
Victoria can’t take action on climate change and expand its brown coal industry at the same time. The two are incompatible. To reduce our emissions and tackle climate change we need to be moving away from brown coal, not building new polluting projects.
It’s well known that Victoria’s energy portfolio is poorly balanced. In 2009, 92 percent of the state’s electricity came from burning brown coal. What’s less well known though is that the coal industry has huge expansion plans. Our state government has issued the coal industry with exploration and mining licences for huge swathes of our land across the state. If just a fraction of the proposed projects go ahead Victoria’s greenhouse emissions would increase massively, as would the industry’s water use and its impact on our local environments.
It’s time to draw a line in the sand. We need a moratorium on new coal projects, and on the expansion of existing coal projects for Victoria. And we need a plan to clean up the state’s electricity supply by shifting towards clean, renewable energy.
The first step is to know what’s on the drawing board. That’s where CoalWatch comes in.
CoalWatch provides a way for everyday Victorians to keep track of the coal industry’s ambitious expansion plans. To check what tax-payer money has been pledged to brown coal projects and the coal projects industry is spruiking to our politicians.
Victorian governments have so far given the coal industry the green light. Now it’s up to all of us to put up the stop sign. Help us make sure Victoria’s brown coal stays in the ground.
Watch this video to explore Victoria’s dirty little secrets.
Why CoalWatch