Adani plans to ship coal from its proposed Carmichael coal project in Queensland to Godda in eastern India where they are constructing a new coal-fired power station to burn Australian coal to generate dirty, overpriced power for Bangladesh. Adani’s proposed coal plant at Godda will displace thousands of Indigenous adivasi (Aboriginal) people, and be highly polluting for the local community and global climate. The world cannot afford Adani’s coal mine
What is the Adani Project?
About Adani, the Galilee Basin, the Carmichael coalmine and Abbot Point
Why is this a bad idea? Let me count the ways . . .
• Greenhouse Gas emissions
• Australia’s Paris commitments
• Adani’s record
• Political influence
• The Great Barrier Reef
• Indigenous rights
• Employment
• Water
Financial Risk to the Taxpayer
Coal kills now… … Climate change will kill in the future
What is the Adani Project?
The Adani Group is a network of family-controlled companies headed by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani. Its businesses span coal trading, coal mining, oil and gas exploration, ports, multi-modal logistics, power generation, and transmission and gas distribution. It controls the majority of coal imports into India. It owns the Abbot Point Coal Terminal near Townsville as well as many ports in India. Adani Power is the largest private energy producer in India (9,280MW). For some years Adani has been seeking to open up a massive coal mine – the Carmichael Mine – in the Galilee Basin, west of Rockhampton. The Galilee Basin is a vast geological basin covering about 250,000 km2 in central Queensland. The Basin straddles the Great Dividing Range with rivers on its north-eastern margin flowing to the Coral Sea (Great Barrier Reef) and those in the west and south flowing inland to Lake Eyre. The Great Artesian Basin underlies most of the Galilee Basin and beneath it lie huge coal deposits laid down when Australia was part of Gondwana. Operation of the mine would require an extension of a railway line to link it to the Abbot Point coal terminal.
Why is this a BAD idea?
Greenhouse gas emissions: The Paris Climate conference recognised that there is a limited carbon budget left: the amount of coal that the world can afford to burn if we wish to stay within 2ºC global warming. Existing coal mines around the world can already supply more than that, without developing any new mines. Coal from the Carmichael mine, once burnt, would send 79 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year – seven times the abatement purchased by the federal government in its April 2017 Emissions Reduction Fund reverse auction. Over its lifetime, according to the federal Environment Department’s own figures, it will emit an astonishing 4.7 billion tonnes into the atmosphere. Put another way, total emissions associated with that one mine would be equivalent to nine times Australia’s total overall emissions in 2014. It is argued that if we don’t supply the coal, Adani will source it elsewhere, and that the Carmichael coal is cleaner than alternatives – though that point is disputed. Carmichael coal has a lower energy content than the Australian average, and a higher ash content. Other sources (e.g. Russia, Indonesia) can provide more efficient coal. Although Carmichael coal would be marginally cleaner than Indian coal, the emissions from transporting it 5-10 times as far would need to be counted against any reduction when the coal is burnt. Last month, Malcolm Turnbull was asked in the Australian Parliament about his government’s support for the Adani mine. He said stopping the mine “would be no benefit to the global climate whatsoever, because if our coal exports stopped, they would simply be sourced from other countries”. This is the familiar “drug dealers’ defence” and is no excuse whatsoever. We should demand that other countries take climate change seriously too – and we should note that Adani is also in the business of solar energy, which is now proving to be cheaper to install in India than new coal-fired power stations. Of course, the idea that mining or burning coal anywhere can make a positive contribution to the world’s efforts to reduce emissions is absurd.
In short – It’s a dud.