Browsing: Climate litigation

Mining company Xstrata's main argument to justify a major Queensland coal mine - that 'if we don't sell the coal, someone else will' - employs the same reasoning drug dealers use to justify their actions, Australian Conservation Foundation president Professor Ian Lowe told a court hearing today.

The Climate Institute says the clean energy bill should allow citizens to launch legal proceedings against companies and governments if there are breaches, while generators says the Government's package doesn't fix any of the problems that caused it to reject the CPRS.

• Closing arguments begin in Xstrata coal mine case
  
• Victorian Parliament passes landfill levies bill
  
• No prospect for an early carbon scheme link with NZ

• Queensland court schedules hearings for Xstrata coal challenge
  
• We're all climate policy sabateurs, union chief says
  
• Watchdog agencies issue joint warning on solar claims

A NSW court is set to re-assess the merits of a proposed coal mine expansion in a rare form of legal challenge brought by a group of environmentalists.

A NSW court has allowed CO2 activists to seek an order preventing Macquarie Generation's Bayswater power station from burning more than seven million tonnes of coal a year and to ask for new declarations that the company breached implied limits on the plant's greenhouse gas emissions.

• Rann sets 60MW limit on feed-in tariff scheme
  
• Gillard has put Greens in 'driver's seat', Abbott says
  
• High Court to hear case on farmer's carbon rights
  
• Nicholas Stern meets with key politicians
  
• SA doing best at waste recovery: NSW report

A climate activist's challenge in the NSW environment court to approvals to expand two power stations is likely to focus on CCS conditions set by the NSW Planning Minister and whether he has adequately considered ecologically sustainable development.

• Austpac gains NSW environment approval for steel-waste recycling plant
  
• Macquarie Generation loses court bid to make CO₂ challengers pay costs
  
• Hot Rock Ltd granted Queensland exploration permit

Hunger-strike farmer wins right to High Court hearing; High Court to rule on watchdog NGO's tax status; and World Economic Forum issues energy efficiency report.