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Stop the Newcastle Coal Export Terminal
Help stop the massive expansion of Newcastle coal exports – take the pledge!
The NSW Government has given coal companies the go-ahead to double the capacity of the world’s biggest coal port. You can help stop it.
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Latest news – direct action planned against Newcastle coal expansion
On Saturday November 3rd, join hundreds of people taking to the water of Newcastle Harbour to shut down coal exports from the world’s biggest coal port. Find out more.
Why stop Newcastle coal export expansion?
Coal exports are Australia’s single biggest contribution to climate change. The greenhouse pollution from Australia’s coal exports exceeds all our domestic sources of pollution combinedi. In NSW, we have the world’s biggest coal port, at Newcastle.
During 2006, the NSW Government conducted a public assessment of a proposed new Coal Export Terminal in Newcastle Harbour. The process included a public submission period, and a 3 day long public hearing by a handpicked “Independent Expert Panel”. Over 700 people took the time to write a submission to the assessment process, nearly all of them calling on the government to reject the CET due to the massive impact it would have on the global climateeii. During the 3 days of public hearings at Newcastle Town Hall, nearly every person that presented to the panel demanded that the project be rejected, due to climate change.
On Friday 13th April 2007, the NSW Government overrode the clear will of the community, and approved the new Coal Export Terminal. On the same day, the NSW Government approved a massive expansion of the existing Kooragang Island coal terminal in Newcastle, which had also been clearly opposed by nearly everyone in the community who commented on it.
The two projects now approved by the NSW Government would lift the capacity of Newcastle coal exports from 102 million tonnes per annum to 211 million tonnes of coal per annum. When burned in overseas power stations, this much coal would produce over half a billion tonnes of greenhouse pollution, every year, indefinitely. That’s nearly as much greenhouse pollution as is currently generated in the whole of Australia, from all sources including forest and woodland destruction, steel-milling, agriculture, cement-manufacturing, transport, and power generation. All from one coal port.
Meanwhile, the planet is in the midst of a climate crisis. Already observed impacts of climate change include:
thousands of people dislocated from low-lying islandsiii iv
frightening rates of ice-melt in polar regions, resulting in habitat loss for species such as the polar bear, and contributing to rising sea levelsv
increasing frequency and/or severity of extreme weather events such as droughts, brushfires, floods, and cyclonesvi
major disruptions to ecosystems, resulting in severe impacts on some species, and in at least one case (the Central American Golden Toad), extinctionvii.
This has all resulted from an observed global average temperature increase of 0.76 degrees Celsiusviii. If the planet continues to warm to 2 degrees, impacts of climate change would includeix:
a quarter of a billion people displaced by rising seas and cyclones
up to 2.8 billion people without enough water
mass species extinction and loss of ecosystems. For example, 97% of the world’s coral reefs would die.
With a global warming of just 2 to 3 degrees, there is also a worryingly high chance that climate change would become self-reinforcing and unstoppable. As forests, soils, and oceans turned from “carbon sinks”, into “carbon sources”x, the global temperature would spiral ever higher, leading to sea level rises of 25 metres, chaotic weather on every continent, and the very real possibility of the extinction of most species on earthxi.
To avoid this situation, greenhouse emissions must stop rising immediately, followed by wholesale reductions in global greenhouse pollution – a 90% cut by 2050.xii. Industrialised nations like Australia need to make the same sort of greenhouse pollution cuts even sooner – 90% or more by 2030xiii xiv xv. Since coal is the most greenhouse polluting fossil fuel, and a major source of global emissions, that means we need to cut back on coal. And we need to do it fast.
To double coal exports from the world’s biggest coal port, with the world in this crisis, is simply unconscionable. We must not let it happen.
But what about “clean coal”?
Coal companies and governments are spending a lot of rhetoric, and nearly as much money, promoting the concept of “clean coal.” The idea is that the world can go on burning coal, and the greenhouse pollution can be captured, and buried in the earth, rather than being released into the atmosphere. It is a technology that is still experimental, and speculativexvi xvii. One day in the future, it may be an option. It may turn out to be a fizzer.
Meanwhile, every tonne of coal that is currently exported from Newcastle harbour is converted to carbon dioxide and dumped into the atmosphere. If coal exports from Newcastle are doubled as planned, every tonne of coal that leaves Newcastle will still be converted to carbon dioxide and dumped into the atmosphere.
The problem is that greenhouse pollution needs to be cut now, not in a few decades time. Even the ardent supporters of clean coal don’t claim that relying on the technology will result in a reduction of greenhouse emissions by 2050. They just say that greenhouse emissions will not rise as much as they would have otherwisexviii.
That’s not good enough. Global greenhouse emissions need to be cut by 90% in coming decades. Relying on “clean coal” can never achieve that, so the only responsible course of action is to drastically cut back coal consumption. There should be plans in place to halve Newcastle coal exports in coming years, but instead, governments and coal companies propose to double them.
Want to know more? Find out the facts about clean coal.
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Backing it up:
iAustralia’s net emissions 2002: 550 Mtpa (Australian Greenhouse Office). Australia’s coal exports 2005/06: 233 Mtpa (Australian Coal Association). Coal to CO2-e coefficient: 2.4 (Australian Greenhouse Office). CO2-e emissions from Australia’s coal exports: 559 Mtpa.
iiAllen Kearns, Peter D’Abreton, and Neil Gross (January 2007), Independent Panel of Experts for the NCIG Coal Export Terminal, Kooragang Island, NSW Department of Planning.
iii“Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island”, The Independent 24.12.06, http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2099971.ece
iv“Keeping their heads above water”, Sydney Morning Herald 31.03.07, by Nick Galvin
vRachel Warren (Tyndal Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia) (2006), Impacts of Global Climate Change at Different Annual Mean Temperature Increases, contribution to “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, Cambridge University Press.
viRachel Warren, ibid.
viiRachel Warren, ibid.
viiiIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group 1 (2007), Summary for Policy Makers, Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.
ixRachel Warren, ibid.
xRachel Warren, ibid.
xiHansen, J. (NASA); The Threat to the Planet: How Can We Avoid Dangerous Human-Made Climate Change? Remarks on 21 November 2006 on acceptance of WWF Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal at St. James Palace, London, http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
xiiPaul Baer and Michael Mastrandrea (2006), High Stakes – Designing emissions pathways to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change, The Institute for Public Policy Research. The figure of 80% is based on 1990 levels of greenhouse pollution.
xiiiRising Tide Newcastle (2007), The War Effort – What Australia must do to stop catastrophic climate change.
xivSpratt (2007), Avoiding Catastrophe, Friends of the Earth Australia and Carbon Equity Project.
xvGeorge Monbiot (2006), Heat – How to stop the planet burning, Penguin Books.
xviIPCC Special Report – Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, Summary for Policy Maker and Technical Summary
xviiThe Future of Coal – Options for a Carbon-Constrained World, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007)
xviiiFisher et al (January 2006), Technological Development and Economic Growth (ABARE Research Report 06.1), Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.