Oz Environment Minister Announces Coal Expansion; "Explains Away" 1.3 Billion Tons Of New CO2 Emissions

When the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, approved three new coalmine expansions last week, she not only failed abjectly to act on climate change, but by diverting scarce workers from constructing homes to expanding fossil-fuel projects, she also made it harder for the government to improve housing affordability through its aim of building 1.2m new homes in five years.

Last week Plibersek posted photos of her releasing a cute little bilby into a wild training zone. Oddly there was no such cute photo, nor mention on her list of “some of the things I’m most proud of”, of her approving those three coalmine expansions, which will generate about 1.3bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over their lifetime. On ABC’s Weekend Breakfast, when asked how the approval squared with both the government’s commitment to net zero by 2050 and the pleas from those living in the Pacific Islands to reduce our emissions, she batted away the questions.

Apparently, approving 1.3bn tonnes of emissions does not undermine the government’s commitments to reaching net zero, the minister argued, because “all of these projects fit within our safeguard mechanism”. At this point it is worth noting the “safeguard mechanism” was first developed by Tony Abbott and if red flags aren’t waving at this point then you might want to Google “Tony Abbott climate change is crap”.

The safeguard mechanism allows companies to pay their way out of reducing emissions by buying carbon offsets. These offsets are often utterly worthless, and cost relatively so little that these mining companies had no qualms about paying the cost to emit 1.3bn tonnes of CO2. Maybe I am too simple, but if your emissions reduction policy does not actually deter coal companies from increasing their emissions, I think there may be an issue with how it works.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2024/oct/03/tanya-plibersek-coalmine-decision-climate-housing-emissions