Mine near Great Barrier Reef rejected due to 'irreversible damage' risk

The authorities on Wednesday turned down a proposal for a brand new open-cut coal mine close to the Great Barrier Reef, invoking environmental legal guidelines and the danger of “irreversible damage.”

The mining undertaking, proposed by controversial Australian businessman Clive Palmer, would have been situated lower than 10 kilometers from the reef on the Queensland shoreline, about 700 kilometers northwest of Brisbane.

Tanya Plibersek, the minister for the surroundings and water, indicated final 12 months that she supposed to reject the mine and formalized her choice on Wednesday.

Plans for open-cut coal mine close to the Great Barrier Reef have been given the crimson gentle. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

She mentioned it was the primary time a federal surroundings minister had used their powers beneath environmental legal guidelines to reject a mine.

In turning down the undertaking, Plibersek cited vital potential environmental risks to the reef, which is already closely threatened by local weather change.

“The risk of pollution and irreversible damage to the reef is very real. The project would have had unacceptable impacts on freshwater in the area and potentially on fragile seagrass meadows,” Plibersek mentioned in a video posted on social media.

She mentioned that through the public session interval, her division had acquired 9,000 public feedback concerning the mine in simply 10 business days.

The authorities has been beneath stress from UNESCO to higher defend the reef and in 2022, it pledged one billion Australian {dollars} for efforts to guard the delicate ecosystem, together with local weather adaptation measures and water high quality applications.

The authorities, elected in 2022, got here to energy promising stronger motion on the local weather in a rustic nonetheless closely wedded to fossil fuels.

The mining undertaking, proposed by controversial Australian businessman Clive Palmer, would have been situated lower than 10 kilometers from the reef on the Queensland shoreline (AAP)

But its local weather insurance policies are rated “insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker, which discovered Australia just isn’t on target to fulfill targets to restrict warming to 1.5 levels Celsius above pre-industrial ranges.

The authorities has rejected calls from the nation’s Green Party to show down all new fossil gasoline initiatives.