An appeals court on Tuesday overturned a groundbreaking ruling that Australia’s environment minister had a duty to protect younger people against climate change.
Three Federal Court judges ruled against Sussan Leey, Environment Minister, for a variety reasons.
In 2020, eight teenagers from Australia took Ley to court to stop her approval of the expansion of a coal mining operation.
They lost their attempt to stop the Vickery mine’s expansion in New South Wales state, but their lawyers claimed victory from the judge’s ruling last year that Ley had a duty to prevent future climate harm.
Justice Mordy Bromberg, who was the judge in the case, noted that the Whitehaven Coal mine expansion would result in an additional 33,000,000 metric tons (36,000,000 U.S. tonnes) of coal being mined over 25 years and 100,000,000 metric tons (1110 million U.S. tonnes) of carbon dioxide being released into our atmosphere.
Chief Justice James Allsop and Justices Jonathan Beach and Michael Wheelahan, in siding with Ley’s appeal, ruled for a variety of reasons that the court should not impose on Ley a duty of care in considering the mine’s extension.
Ley argued that some of Bromberg’s findings were incorrect and “reached beyond the evidence,” the appeals judges wrote. “The Court is unanimously of the view that these complaints are unfounded.”
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Allsop said the plaintiffs’ evidence was not challenged by Ley. “The threat of climate change and global warming was and is not in dispute between the parties in this litigation,” Allsop wrote in the first line of his judgment.
Anjali Sharma (an activist) stated that floods, described as one-in-500 year events, that have devastated northern New South Wales’ communities in recent weeks was proof that climate change must be addressed by the government.
“The Federal Court today may have accepted the minister’s legal arguments over ours, but that does not change the minister’s moral obligation to take action on climate change and to protect young people from the harms that will bring,” Sharma said outside the Sydney court.
Court rules that @sussanley is not an Australian minister with a climate duty of care. #ClimateAction #Australia #ClimateChange
“It does not change the science. It does not put out the fires or drain the floodwaters,” Sharma added.
The High Court could hear an appeal by the lawyers representing the plaintiffs.
Ley welcomed Tuesday’s ruling and said in a statement her government “remains committed to protecting our environment for current and future generations.”
Australia, which is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and liquid natural gas, is under mounting international pressure to take tougher action on climate change.
Last year, Australia garnered enough international support to defer an attempt by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization, to downgrade the Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status to “in danger“ because of damage caused by climate change.
The reef off Australia’s northeast coast has suffered significantly from coral bleaching caused by unusually warm ocean temperatures in 2016, 2017 and 2020. Two-thirds of coral was damaged by the bleaching.
But the question will be back on the World Heritage Committee’s agenda at its next annual meeting in June.
The Labor Party, an opposition center left party, says Australia would set a more ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions of 43% by the end the decade if it changed its government in elections due to be held by May.
Ley’s conservative government was widely criticized at a U.N. climate summit in Scotland in November over his government’s target of reducing Australia’s emissions by only 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
Associated Press