A Win in the Battle against Greenhouse Gas Emissions

It is very encouraging that awareness of the serious effects of greenhouse gas emmission is starting to register with the Civil Authorities. Hopefully you're all aware now of the fantastic court judgment handed down yesterday(27/11/2006), which found that the Environmental Assessment for the proposed Anvil Hill coal mine did not meet the Environmental Assessment Requirements. This was because it did not include a full greenhouse gas and climate change assessment, which are required by the principals of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD). The EpandA Act required decisions to include ESD principals in their formulation.

The judgment ordered that the DG of Planning's decision that the EA for Anvil Hill met the EARs is “void and without effect.”.

However, the judgment has scope far beyond Anvil Hill, and even beyond the coal industry.

Essentially, Justice Pain found that any Part 3a Environmental Assessment must comply with the principals of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD), including the Precautionary Principal and Intergenerational Equity, and must therefore include a full assessment of cumulative and long term impacts.

That means that every single development that has submitted an assessment under Part 3a, but has not been approved yet, can be taken to court and have the EA declared inadequate, using yesterday's judgment as precedent.

SO – anyone out there fighting any Part 3a development that has had an EA submitted, particularly coal mines, are strongly urged to take the EA to court, based on yesterday's judgment. All you have to do is this: It seems likely that the Government will try and fix this problem with new legislation, but they can't do that until the next sitting of parliament, which is not until next year after the election! So we have a window of opportunity....

The judgment is available here:
http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lecjudgments/2006nswlec.nsf/61f584670edbfba2ca2570d40081f438/dc4df619de3b3f02ca257228001de798?OpenDocument

Here are some highlights of the judgement below:

So, go for it! If you would like to talk about it and find out more information please ring Paul Winn at the Hunter Community Environment Centre: 4926 1641

115 While Pt 3A does not specify any limits on the discretion exercised by the Director-General in relation to the scope of the EAR and how these are applied in an environmental assessment I consider that he must exercise that broad discretion in accordance with the objects of the Act which includes the encouragement of ESD principles including those referred to by the Applicant

133 What is required is that the Director-General ensure that there is sufficient information before the Minister to enable his consideration of all relevant matters so that if there is serious or irreversible environmental damage from climate change/global warming and there is scientific uncertainty about the impact he can determine if there are measures he should consider to prevent environmental degradation in relation to this project.

134....I have referred earlier to the principle of intergenerational equity (par 122) and observe that the approach to environmental assessment required by the application of the precautionary principle requires knowledge of impacts which are cumulative, on going and long term.

135 I also conclude that the Director-General failed to take into account the precautionary principle when he decided that the environmental assessment of Centennial was adequate, as already found in relation to intergenerational equity at par 126. This was a failure to comply with a legal requirement. 

-- 
"The fact is that the last time we had high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 100 million years ago and the Sun was a little bit cooler at that time. Now if we push it up...this is not something that most climatologists will talk about but I think that there is a small chance, maybe a 1% chance, that if we really hit the planet too hard we may push it into a runaway system in which the temperature simply goes up and up until the oceans boil into the atmosphere, and that would extinguish all life on Earth."
-	Andrew Watson
	Professor of Environmental Science
	University of East Anglia Norwich UK

Note - this 'runaway' is what happened to our sister planet Venus, where the surface temperature is now above the melting point of lead - in excess of 400 dgrees Celcius!


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