Indian Adani Mining's giant Galilee Basin thermal coal project in Australia's Queensland state is facing another legal hurdle as the Australian Conservation Foundation, or ACF, on Monday lodged an appeal against a Federal Court decision taken last month that found approval of the project's Carmichael mine to be lawful.
The Queensland Resources Council Chief Executive Michael Roche said the Australian Conservation Foundation appeal was not a surprise and that it snubbed the Paris climate agreement.
"This is just one in a long line of ... attempts to delay jobs and economic growth in Queensland while pretending that a refusal to supply our coal will mean that countries like India will not simply source their coal from elsewhere," Roche said.
The ACF is disputing former environment minister Greg Hunt's argument in court that burning of coal at the project's Carmichael mine will not have an impact on global warming and the Great Barrier Reef.
"Australia's system of environment laws is broken if it allows the Federal Environment Minister to approve a mega-polluting coal mine -- the biggest in Australia's history -- and claim it will have no impact on the global warming and the reef," ACF president Geoff Cousins said Monday.
Roche said that Queensland thermal coal was essential to help keep global temperature increases to below 2 degrees given its high quality and use in High Efficiency, Low Emission coal technologies to generate electricity.
"India has no intention of halting the use of coal to generate power but they are committed to using the HELE technologies, which perform best using the higher-quality coal found in Queensland," he said.
The project has been plagued by legal challenges and has gone through the Australian government's approvals process over the past six years in order to gain permission to build the mine and transport infrastructure for 60 million mt/year of export coal.
Last month, the Federal Court dismissed a Native Title claim against the project.
Adani said in August that pending the resolution of outstanding legal challenges it is ready to deliver on its plan to build the project.
Adani was not available for immediate comment Monday.
