Sign up today to join our powerful StopAdani Kooyong team! We are making a difference in the campaign to deny Adani access to finance, insurance and the contractors it needs to help it build its disastrous Carmichael coal mine. Please fill out the form below if you would like to join us and help Stop Adani!
The Adani threat
Adani has still not mined any coal at its Carmichael mine, more than 10 years since it announced it would be shipping coal within two years. But the threat is still very much alive. Adani is very active on the site, commencing excavation to access the coal seam, clearing the route for the rail line to connect to the port at Abbot Point, building an airstrip and more. The mine has all the necessary State and Federal approvals, and has an agreement with the Queensland government which provides for an extended royalties holiday as well as a deal allowing massive groundwater use at little to no cost. There is clearly no long term future for coal, as countries around the world increasingly commit to reducing and eliminating greenhouse emissions. But there is still the potential for enormous damage as a result of burning more coal in the short and medium term. Adani apparently plans to get around the decline in the coal market with a vertical integration model – he mines the coal in Australia, ships it to India, burns it in his own power stations, and sells the power to whomever he can, currently including Bangladesh under a very lucrative deal. He is closely enmeshed with the Modi Indian government and can expect very favourable treatment to prop up this very profitable arrangement.
Australian coal and emissions exports
Australia is one of the world’s highest emitters of greenhouse gases on a per capita basis (along with Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan). But this excludes the emissions we export. Australia is already the world’s largest exporter of coal and is on track to be the world’s largest exporter of natural gas. Our per capita emissions including exports are nine times greater than China’s. Adani’s mine will directly increase our emissions exports, and it will also open up the Galilee Basin for the development of yet more coal mines, including those of Palmer and Rinehart. Australia must take some responsibility for the impact of our exports. We need to abandon attempts to expand coal mining and wind back our fossil fuel industries, perhaps taking up opportunities to move to green hydrogen and ammonia exports.
And it’s not just emissions
The Carmichael mine is an environmental disaster not just because of the emissions it will produce. The mine will impact on local farming and water, and damage the Great Artesian Basin, probably irreparably. It poses a major threat to endangered species including the Black-throated Finch and to delicate environments, especially the Doongmabulla Springs. There is a significant risk the mine could result in the draining of the springs, which are sacred to the local traditional owners, the Wangan and Jagalingou people. The mine therefore represents a profound threat to Wangan and Jagalingou culture. Please consider supporting the continuing Wangan and Jagalingou campaign against the mine.
Stopping Adani
Now that the mine has the necessary government approvals, the best way to stop it is to deny Adani access to finance, insurance and the many contractors he needs to construct his mine. This is now the main focus of the StopAdani movement. We at StopAdani Kooyong are playing an active part in the campaign. This has included working with ACF Chisholm and good people from PECAN / StopAdani Macnamara, conducting online actions. All the major financial institutions have now refused to support the Carmichael mine, in no small part due to the efforts of the StopAdani movement worldwide. Now Adani wants Indian taxpayers to support his destructive project, via the State Bank of India. The bank is currently considering a A$1 billion loan to Adani. You can help put pressure on the bank to reject this proposal here. As of April 2021, six of Adani’s insurers have committed to stop providing them insurance, and 33 global insurers have ruled out ever insuring Adani, including all the major insurers. This result has been driven to a significant extent by the concerted action of StopAdani groups across Australia, assisted by Market Forces and Tipping Point. This has involved bombarding insurers with emails, phone calls, tweets, LinkedIn contacts and more recently, calendar jams – especially in “hours of power” on-line. StopAdani Kooyong has been credited with “knocking out” two of them.Other actions target Adani contractors. For a full list of these, as well as financiers and insurers and contractors who have ruled Adani out, see here.
Adani feeling the heat
In a sign it is feeling the heat from this campaign, Adani has rebranded itself as ‘Bravus’ in Australia. This was a risible own goal, as it does not mean brave, but is more accurately translated as “crooked” or “mercenary” according to Latin experts. In more sinister moves, Adani has taken legal action intended to silence activists, targeting Ben Pennings from Galilee Blockade and Adrian Burragubba, an elder of the Wangan and Jagalingou, who has been bankrupted following a succession of court cases.
Adani needs finance – help stop them getting it! Adani’s NQXT coal port (formerly Adani Abbot Point Terminal) which takes the coal from the Adani Carmichael mine in outback Queensland, is heavily in debt, and is having some trouble refinancing that debt (two of the last three tranches of debt due have had to be paid back out of Adani’s own pocket). NQXT is working to refinance US$500m worth of bonds maturing in December 2022. However, if you are an investor looking for information on NQXT, you won’t find much on the official website, which doesn’t even include the words ‘Adani’ or ‘coal’ in the text. So Market Forces has published nqxt.org, a website with all the information on NQXT that Adani forgot to put on the official website. This is not a parody site. They are not pretending to be NQXT and are open about this website being published by Market Forces in order to critique the lack of information on the official NQXT site. Please check out the site, as it will appear in internet searches if people start looking at it.
What we must do
The fight against the Adani Carmichael coal mine is still at the vanguard of the fight in Australia for the future of the planet. Despite some important wins for the StopAdani movement, the fight continues. Please join us – sign up below!