Australia's Massive Coalfield

Climate change was supposed to have won the Labor Party the Australian election. But after having been routed by voters, its panicked leaders backed the mining of a coalfield bigger than the UK. Fearing a wipe out in state elections next year amid a rise in pro-coal workers, and a rebellion against its plans to halve Australian's carbon emissions, the Labor state government in Queensland accelerated its decision on 105,000 square miles of coal-rich outback known as the Galilee Basin. ¹

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The international climate movement argues that if the Galilee Basin's estimated 27 billion tons of coal was extracted, exported and burned, the extra carbon dioxide released each year would be far more than Australia's total emissions, and would set back the world's chances of keeping the increase in global warming under 2C. ² Really? The international climate movement should check some statistics. It's impossible that Australia doing anything regarding CO2 could possibly affect the world's temperature 0.0 C over 100 years. Australia currently emits 1.6% of the global CO2. Others have also bemoaned this action. "Australians elected someone who once brought a lump of coal into Parliament urging us to dismiss the warning of climate scientists, and to dig up more coal instead," Professor Stephan Lewandowsky said. "There is little doubt that his government will do precisely that." "We have lost Australia for now," warned Penn State climatologist Michael Mann. "A coalition of a small number of bad actors now threaten the survivability of our species," he said. Once again, a massive overstatement. These alarmist are ignoring the fact that Australia's annual man-made emissions are about half a day's worth of China's

References

1. Bernard Lagan, "Australia plans coalfield the size of Britain in climate change u-turn," thetimes.co.uk, May 25, 2019
2. "Labor party plans coalfield the size of Britain in climate change u- turn," burnmorecoal.com, May 24, 2019
3. Eric Worrall, "Mann and Lewandowsky's climate lament: we have lost Australia for now," wattsupwiththat.com, May 19, 2019

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