When addressing a conference at the United Firefighters Union in Hobart last Friday (16 November), Greens Deputy Leader and climate-change spokesperson, Adam Bandt MP, announced a significant new election policy on coal.
Highlighting the link between worsening bushfires and climate change, Mr Bandt detailed how the Greens hold plans to phase out thermal coal exports by 2030.
“When coal exports are added to Australia’s domestic emissions, Australia is the sixth highest emitter in the world,” Mr Bandt said, “Australia’s coal exports produce over 1 billion tonnes of pollution a year, doubling our domestic emissions.”
If successful, the policy would build on the existing Greens policy of no new coal mines which would prevent, for example, the proposed giant Adani mine.
Mr Bandt further said that funds raised from coal export permits during the phase-out period would be used to support Australia’s coal communities during the transition.
Yet Tania Constable, Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) was quick to respond, stating that the call by the Greens for Australian thermal coal exports to be made illegal ‘needs to be categorically rejected’.
“Australian coal has powered the industrialisation of Japan, Korea and China. In doing so it has directly contributed to hundreds of millions of people being lifted out of poverty and improving the living standards for many more,” she said.
“The International Energy Agency (IEA) in the 2018 World Energy Outlook said coal will remain the single largest source of electricity through to 2040 under both the current and new policies scenarios.”
“Suggesting that Australian thermal coal exports should be banned not only flies in the face of what the IEA is projecting for our region, it also condemns billions of people across the Asian region and increasingly Africa to energy poverty. The victims of this would be primarily women and children in developing countries,” she stated.
According to the MCA, royalties from coal contributed $5.2 billion to Australian State budgets in 2017-18, with the coal industry directly employing 50,000 people and 120,000-related jobs predominantly in small businesses in regional areas.
“Coal will continue to play an important role in the provision of power at the global level. The focus by the coal sector will be on how to lower its emission profile through more innovation and carbon capture and storage,” Constable said.
“Suggestions that coal exports should be banned are reckless and insulting to tens of thousands of hardworking Australians and their families,” she warned.