Laura Kirwan,17,Ava Princi,17 and Izzy Raj-Seppings,14,who are among the eight students who sought to have Environment Minister Sussan Ley blocked from approving a coal mine due to climate impacts.
“Those potential harms may fairly be described as catastrophic,particularly should global average surface temperatures rise to and exceed 3 degrees beyond the pre-industrial level,” the judge found.
The children,who met through the School Strike for Climate movement,had argued that due to Ms Ley’s duty of care to them and other children the court should grant an injunction preventing her from approving an extension to the Vickery coal mine owned by Whitehaven Coal and located near Gunnedah in NSW.
The federal court judge accepted evidence that climate change was caused by carbon dioxide emissions,that it was probably already unlikely to be halted without temporarily passing the target of 1.5 degrees,and that if allowed to continue above 2 degrees unchecked it would cause tipping points to be triggered leading to average global surface temperatures to rise by four degrees by the end of the century,unleashing massive environmental destruction.
“Many thousands will suffer premature death from heat-stress or bushfire smoke. Substantial economic loss and property damage will be experienced,” Justice Mordecai Bromberg wrote in a summary of his judgement.
He further accepted that,should the planned extension to the mine near Gunnedah go ahead,100 million tonnes of carbon pollution would be released into the atmosphere,causing a small but measurable increase in global warming.
But he said that he had not been satisfied that “a reasonable apprehension of breach of the duty of care by the minister has been established” and dismissed the claim for an injunction.