THE Independent Planning Commission and Land and Environment Court are "sabotaging" international efforts to reduce global warming by rejecting Hunter mines because of emissions from their exported coal, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union has told a NSW inquiry.
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The union has accused the commission and court of "misapplying" global greenhouse gas protocols and "sabotaging" the United Nations emissions accounting framework, and the Paris Agreement on climate change, in a submission saying the NSW Government has not gone far enough to prevent mine refusals because of the impact of Hunter coal burnt overseas.
It follows the Land and Environment Court rejection of Gloucester's Rocky Hill mine in February, 2019, and Independent Planning Commission conditions on a Hunter United Wambo mine expansion that tied a NSW coal approval to Australia's Paris Agreement commitments for the first time.
The union told the inquiry that under the Paris Agreement nations are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions within their borders and are obliged to adopt national targets to mitigate them under a global aim to restrict global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"Emissions from coal that is burnt for power generation in China is the responsibility of China, regardless of whether that coal was mined in China, Australia or any other nation," the CFMEU said.
NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes proposed amendments to existing legislation in October to clarify that development consent conditions about emissions can only be imposed if the emissions occur in Australia.
But the NSW Minerals Council said the amendments fell short of delivering the outcomes intended by the government.
"Publicly available legal analysis on the Bill confirm the proposed amendments don't remove the legal risk that downstream emissions could be used as a reason to reject projects in NSW," the Minerals Council said.
"Under the proposed amendment a consent authority can still refuse a development on the basis of greenhouse gas or climate change."
The Minerals Council told the NSW Parliament's planning and environment committee that additional amendments were needed because the proposed legislation left open that the Independent Planning Commission or Land and Environment Court may have no option but to refuse a project without a condition about emission impacts outside Australia.
"NSW Minerals Council and its members have been urging the NSW Government to provide policy certainty on this issue since early 2019 to clarify that downstream emissions cannot be used as a reason to refuse NSW projects," the Minerals Council said.
Land and Environment Court Chief Justice Brian Pearson rejected the Rocky Hill mine in a landmark decision that accepted climate scientist Professor Will Steffen's evidence that the Paris Agreement's 1.5 degrees Celsius can only be met if the world stays within a "carbon budget" of emissions.
The "carbon budget" requires no further expansion of coal mines because "current fossil fuel reserves already being exploited contain more than enough carbon to consume the remaining carbon budget", Professor Steffen told the court.
Lock the Gate Alliance described the proposed legislation as a "clumsy intervention in a complex and hugely significant issue that has implications for every person in NSW".
"It introduces uncertainty where now there is clarity and would blinker planning authorities to important considerations in the exercise of their functions," Lock the Gate said.
"As we write this submission, people in regional communities across the state and in outer suburban areas are grappling with cataclysmic bushfires following three years of drought and fuelled by the high temperatures of the early stages of climate change.
"This Bill has been created by the government under pressure from the coal mining industry following recent decisions by the Independent Planning Commission which the industry did not like."
Environmentalist Peter Gray's challenge to the Anvil Hill mine approval at Wybong triggered the inclusion of downstream greenhouse gas emissions into the assessment of NSW mine applications.
Lock the Gate spokesperson Georgina Woods said the importance of coal exports to the Hunter economy is "precisely why it would be so dangerous and reckless to ignore the role this region's industry plays in fueling climate change".
"The rest of the world can see that Australia's obstinacy over climate change is doing us terrible harm. Changing the law is not going to change the reality that NSW coal is playing a role in fueling that harm," Ms Woods said.
"Arguments about UN accounting frameworks are red herrings and it's disappointing to see the union pushing for selective blindness when it comes to the environmental impacts of coal mines. It's important for all of us to confront the very difficult problems facing our region with clarity and honesty.
"The truth is that we're starting to realise as a community that we if we want to bequeath a living planet and a thriving region to future generations, we're going to have to make very different decisions this decade from the ones we've been making up until now."
The committee will hold a public hearing in February.
