14/06/2019

Adani Mine Gets Final Environmental Approval For Carmichael Mine

ABC News - Josh Bavas | Allyson Horn

Adani has passed its final environmental approval and can now begin work on its Carmichael mine in Central Queensland after nearly nine years of planning, fierce protests and endless political debate.
Queensland's Environment Department this afternoon approved the mine's groundwater management plan, with construction at the Galilee Basin to ramp up over the coming weeks.
Over the past 18 months Adani had produced about a dozen versions of its groundwater management plan. Previous attempts failed to meet key environmental requirements, including a plan to avoid destroying one of the world's last unspoiled desert oases, the Doongmabulla Springs Complex.
Explainer
What we know about Adani's
Carmichael coal mine
It was ordered to identify the source of the springs and today the Environment Department said Adani had sufficiently established that Clematis Sandstone was the main source aquifer.
However, the miner was ordered to do further investigation and install a new bore to rule out whether the Permian aquifers (Colinlea) was also a source.
It will also be required to do further work over the next two years to identify any other potential source, by using detailed hydrogeochemical analysis of groundwater from different springs, isotopic analysis, air sampling and examinations of core samples from new bores.
The Department said while box cut mining can begin at the site, underground mining will not commence until the further testing is completed.
The Department said it sought advice from CSIRO and Geoscience Australia, which it received last week, and decided to approve the plan in its current form.
"CSIRO and Geoscience Australia also confirmed that some level of uncertainty in geological and groundwater conceptual models always exists," the Department said in a statement.

Miner 'ready to start work'
Adani Australia chief executive Lucas Dow said the company was ready to start work.
"Over the coming days preparatory activities such as finalising contracts, mobilising equipment, recruitment and completing inductions will continue," he said.
Graphic map showing location of Adani's proposed Carmichael Coal Mine in central Queensland with a rail line connecting to the Aurizon Network that then travels to the Abbot Point terminal near Bowen in north Queensland. (ABC News)
"These preparatory actions will enable us to then start construction activities, including fencing, bridge and road upgrades, water management and civil earthworks on the mine site.
"The level of construction activity will then steadily increase over the coming weeks."
Mr Dow said the mine would need about 1,500 employees, and was expected to create 6,750 indirect jobs in the region.

Minister unapologetic over approval time
Queensland Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch told Parliament the plan was approved after significant amendments and the commitment to continue further monitoring.
"At times the robustness of the process has attracted criticism from those in the media and the community who would have liked a quicker decision," she said.
"And, it has been derided by the LNP here in Queensland who have appeared to be keen to see all environmental processes abandoned.


Queensland Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch announces Adani approval.  (ABC News)

"But the people of Queensland have a right to expect that the Government takes a responsible approach to environmental protection, upholds the law and supports decisions based on the best available science.
"Our state has some of the most rigorous environmental protections in the country and we do not apologise for that."

First mining basin opened up in five decades
The Carmichael mine is the first to gain approval for the Galilee Basin, another six are proposed for the region.
Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan said the approval was made only because Queensland's Labor Government politicians feared they would lose their seats.
A map showing Adani's multi-billion dollar mine and rail project. (Sourced: adanimining.com)
"It has been more than 50 years since a new coal basin has opened in Queensland, so this development is of huge importance to the economic future of Queensland," he said.
"Adani is the biggest commercial investment from an Indian company in Australia. Hopefully there will now be many more investments to come."

Approval comes after frustrated Premier set deadline
After Labor's poor results at the federal election, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk last month said she was "fed up" with both the federal and state delays for the Indian miner and gave her Environment Department the new deadlines.
Today's approval comes almost a fortnight after the Department granted approval for the mine's conservation plan for the endangered black-throated finch.
Stage 1 construction is underway, but today's approval means the miner can now start significant work. (Twitter: Matthew Canavan)
While today's decision gives Adani the green light, designs for its railway line to get coal to the Abbot Point terminal, north of Bowen, are yet to be finalised.
It has approvals to produce up to 60 million tonnes of thermal coal every year but at this stage is only planning to produce about 27.5 million tonnes.
Late yesterday the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) won a Federal Court appeal, which found the Commonwealth had not properly assessed about 2,000 public submissions on Adani's plans to use river water.
But the ACF conceded that the decision was unlikely to further delay the controversial project given today's "green light".

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Climate Change Is Not Causing Wars – Yet

Cosmos - Nick Carne

Major review finds a warming world will be a more violent world. Nick Carne reports.
Politics and poverty are still more important than climate change as drivers of conflict, but that situation may change. Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Climate wars are not yet upon us, according to an international team of experts drawn from diverse backgrounds.
Writing in the journal Nature, they suggest that while the influence of climate is tangible, affecting and exacerbating conflicts, it has not so far been the root cause of war.
Old-school problems such as poor socioeconomic development, inequality, bad statesmanship and a recent history of violence are still much more influential.
The team, which was led by Katharine Mach from Stanford University, US, comprised three assessment facilitators and 11 climate and conflict experts spanning a range of social science disciplines, including political science, economics, geography and environmental sciences.
They also brought to the table different epistemological approaches and diverse previous conclusions about climate and conflict.
Their paper thus assesses the current understanding of the relationship between climate and conflict based on their combined structured judgments.
“Across the experts, best estimates are that 3-20% of conflict risk over the past century has been influenced by climate variability or change, and none of their individual estimated ranges excludes a role of climate in 10% of conflict risk to date,” the researchers write.
The mean estimate across the experts is that climate variability or change has substantially increased risk across 5% of conflicts to date.
However, this is likely to rise to 13% if the global mean temperature rises by two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and 26% for four degrees.
“Future climate-conflict linkages could involve exacerbation of climate-conflict connections that are present in experiences to date, climate change effects that are fundamentally beyond previous experiences or circumstances in which existing response capacities reach their limits,” the authors write.
“Across these categories, relevant climate change risks include substantial economic effects, climatic extremes and associated disasters, effects on agricultural production or differential climate change effects that increase intergroup inequalities.
“Such influences could also reveal ‘missing’ institutions, for which governance mechanisms do not yet exist to address emergent climate change risks (for example, the potential for substantial increases in migration).”
Is there any good news?
The experts suggest with a 67% probability (mean average, of course) that climate-related conflict risk “could be reduced through investments that address known drivers”. For a four-degree-Celsius scenario, this drops to a 57% probability, given the more severe climate change effects.
And the take home message?
“For those scholars and policy-makers focused on conflict, the assessment has pointed to the different ways in which climate may interact with the major drivers of conflict risk,” Mach and colleagues conclude.
“Effectively managing such interactions will require mainstream and holistic, rather than myopic, considerations of the role of the climate across diverse settings and attention to uncertainties that will persist.”

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Act Now On Emissions Says Farmers For Climate Action

Solar Quotes - 


A group representing thousands of farmers across Australia is demanding the Federal Government takes “swift and decisive action” to rein in the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The National Greenhouse Gas Inventory update for December 2018 was released last week and shows Australia’s emissions rose again.
While the report was six days late, there was some prior warning about this outcome after preliminary estimates submitted to the UN were published indicating Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions would be up again for the fourth year in a row.
"As the country grapples with drought, water shortages and the aftermath of the hottest summer on record, it’s abundantly clear. Acting on climate change is not a nice-to-have or optional extra. It’s a strategic and productivity necessity if we want to keep producing food and fibre for the world," said Farmers for Climate Action CEO Verity Morgan-Schmidt.
The group points out while the latest inventory update noted emissions associated with the agriculture and electricity sectors dropped, it wasn’t enough to offset transport and LNG emissions increases.
Ms. Morgan-Schmidt says farmers are concerned the government still isn’t taking the level of action necessary to address what is the biggest issue threatening Australia’s agricultural sector.
"We’re beginning to feel like a broken record, but our emissions just keep heading in the wrong direction."
While farmers are adapting to changed conditions, their capacity to adapt has limits.

About Farmers For Climate Action
Farmers for Climate Action is a non-partisan group representing approximately 5,000 farmers from across Australia. According to the National Farmer’s Federation, there are approximately 85,681 farm businesses in the country.
Among other climate-related demands, the group is calling for the rapid transformation of Australia’s energy system away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy in a way that maximises benefits to farmers and regional communities.
According to its 2016 climate survey of 1,338 farmers and graziers, 80% supported more renewable energy in regional Australia.
Further information on the organisation and its strategic plan can be viewed here.

On-Farm Solar Power – Good For Planet, Good For Pocket
Australian farmers are increasingly embracing on-site solar energy generation. Installing renewables-based electricity generation on-farm isn’t just beneficial in terms of emissions reductions; but it can save farmers a bundle of cash too.
The cost of commercial solar power has dropped rapidly and in addition to the “solar rebate” still available nationally, other support can be accessed in various states. For example, the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority (QRIDA) last week published a video outlining the story of a fish farm near Childers that was able to install solar with the assistance of a Sustainability Loan.


Pond Perch Farming grows out perch for domestic and Asian markets. One of the Volz’s biggest expenses is electricity, but with the addition of the solar power system their mains electricity use is expected to reduce by around 30%.

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