Environmental activists launched legal action on Monday against Australian Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, accusing her of failing to protect the Great Barrier Reef from the targeting of coal mining groups.
The Central Queensland Environment Council, which filed the lawsuit in the Federal Court in Melbourne, criticized Ms Plibersek for refusing to intervene in the application process to expand coal mining operations at two sites in New South Wales, MACH Energy and Narrabri Coal Operations belong.
These extension requests, which extend into the 2040s, are in the final stages of their approval process at the state and federal levels.
The environmental group said it wrote to Ms Plibersek last year asking her to intervene over the link between coal mining and global warming and its “significant impact” on environmental treasures such as the Great Barrier Reef’s corals.
“We do this because we are tired of empty rhetoric. “We are tired of seeing ministers posing for photos with koalas, saying all the right things but doing nothing,” the environmental group’s president, Christine Carlisle, said on Monday.
“The scientific data couldn’t be clearer. It is time for our environment minister to take the lead and act on climate risks,” she added.
Australia has committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 43% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, with the aim of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. However, the center-left government is denied any commitments to coal mines in a country that is one of the largest coal exporters in the world.
A spokesman for Ms. Plibersek declined to comment because the case was still being heard.