The Environment Council of Central Queensland (ECoCeQ) applied for special leave to Australia’s highest court to appeal the Full Federal Court’s dismissal of the landmark Living Wonders climate cases – the High Court bid has been refused. The judicial review in the Federal Court was assessing whether Australia’s Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, is required by law to scrutinise the climate harm of new coal and gas projects.
The cases challenge the Minister’s risk assessment of the Narrabri and Mount Pleasant coal mine proposals in NSW, and were the first court challenges to a coal or gas decision made by Australia’s current Environment Minister. The outcome of these cases could impact the consideration of all future fossil fuel projects in the country. There are currently 117 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline in Australia, with the plans for 35 new coal mines and expansions sitting on the Minister’s desk awaiting approval.
One of the mines at the centre of this case, MACH Energy’s Mt Pleasant coal mine, would become Australia’s largest coal mine if approved, creating destructive climate pollution for decades to come – vision of the Mount Pleasant mine is available here.
The following climate law experts are available for interview:
Dr Julia Dehm – Senior Lecturer at the La Trobe Law School.
Location – Melbourne
Dr Julia Dehm’s research addresses urgent issues of international and domestic climate change and environmental law, natural resource governance and questions of human rights, economic inequality and social justice. Her detailed analysis of climate-related laws produce a compelling account of how the field of environmental law is both structured by unequal power relations and complicit in their reproduction and how international law is implicated in the production of ecological harm.
Professor Nicole Rogers – Professor of Climate Law (Faculty of Law, Bond University)
Location – Gold Coast
Nicole developed and taught Environmental Law for more than 30 years at Southern Cross University, the only Australian university to make Environmental Law a core unit in its law degree at its introduction in 1993. She is currently Professor of Climate Law at Bond University, teaching Bond’s world-first climate law degree. She has research expertise in climate litigation and climate activism. She can speak to the significance of the Living Wonders cases lodging their special request with the High Court, the precedence of the EPBC act being accessed by the high court, and discuss the history of anti-coal mine litigation in Australia and the efficacy of arguments used in such litigation.
