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China and India to Help Wreck Australian Environment?

With both India and China being environmental disaster zones with unchecked pollution, these two economic giants are set to become markets of Australian brown coal with disastrous effects on the environment in Victoria, if plans to hand over up to 33 billion tons of brown coal go ahead.

The Victorian Government is currently planning the development of a major new coal export industry for Victoria. If it goes ahead it will result in billions of tonnes of new coal being allocated for digging up and burning, new coal truck routes through Victoria's towns and cities and major new coal ports at protected places like Western Port or Corner Inlet, next to Wilsons Promontory.

The full extent of their brown coal export plan is only now starting to emerge. And the first step in the process could be decided at any moment.

The Victorian and Federal governments have each committed half of a $90 million pool of money to support new coal projects in Victoria. It’s called the Advanced Lignite Demonstration Program (ALDP), and already coal companies are lining up around the block to get their hands on it. From what has been reported in the media , it’s clear that the companies putting up their hand for taxpayer subsidies are all interested in coal exports.

At the same time, the Napthine Government is considering allocating another 13 billion tonnes of coal to prospective miners in the Latrobe Valley . This would be bad news for our environment, the community and the diversity of the Latrobe Valley economy. Environmental campaigners have successfully delayed the allocation twice, but the government has announced that they will make a decision on whether to proceed or not by the end of the year.

Previous government allocations have promised the earth in jobs and investment but delivered nothing. And yet the Victorian Government now wants to do it all over again.

If it goes ahead, the impact on Victoria will be devastating.

Up to 33 billion tonnes of brown coal could be handed over to coal companies to be dug up, hauled by trucks and trains across the state, and shipped from new ports in protected marine zones to China and India where it would ultimately be burnt, adding to the pollution and illness in those already critical environments.

The impacts would stretch from the heart of Victoria's fertile farmland in Gippsland to protected marine zones at Corner Inlet beside Wilsons Promontory or Western Port beside Philip Island and reach into the future of all Victorians as a new coal export industry would decimate our hopes of keeping climate change within 2 degrees.

What a coal export industry for Victoria would look like

Eating away at our fertile food bowl

The coal in question is buried beneath some of Victoria’s most productive farmland. Gippsland generates 22% of Australia’s milk product from a dairy industry worth $2.1 billion a year. But this vital food bowl could be dug up for brown coal under the government’s plan, and families who’ve farmed the area for generations would be forced off their land.

Barrelling through our major cities

Brown coal would be hauled across the state of Victoria, with major new train and truck routes required to get the coal cargo to port. Coal trains and trucks carrying millions of tonnes of coal a year would spew dangerous particulate pollution across towns and suburbs and back up traffic across our two biggest cities with major community impacts.

Protected marine ecosystems at risk

Coal companies have listed Western Port at Hastings, the Port of Melbourne, the Port of Geelong and even McGaurans Beach, in the middle of Ninety Mile Beach, on their list of potential port developments. Even Corner Inlet, a protected marine zone beside Wilsons Promontory could be dug up and dredged for major new coal freighters. Already the state government has handed over $2 million to port developers at Corner Inlet to begin stage one of their plans, and $110 million was allocated in the 2013-14 state budget for development at Western Port.

Blowing the carbon budget

This major coal export industry would blow chances of limiting global warming to 2 degrees out of the water. Australia’s carbon budget would be shot, and the impacts on all Victorians would be devastating. If the Victorian Government proceeds with its reckless coal allocation plans, 33 billion tonnes of Victorian coal will have been allocated, which if burnt in conventional power stations would produce emissions equivalent to:

    268 years' worth of Victoria’s emissions
    59 years' worth of Australia’s annual emissions
    20 years' worth of India’s emissions
    6 years' worth of the US’s emissions
    4 years' worth of China’s emissions *

And that’s just Latrobe Valley coal - It doesn’t include coal reserves being explored near Bacchus Marsh or throughout Gippsland beyond the Latrobe Valley. What happens to Victoria’s coal reserve will have a serious impact on global emissions and climate change. That’s why help is needed to keep it in the ground.

Australians are being urged to sign the petition linked below and to help protect Victoria’s future by saying no to brown coal exports.  

Source: www.mathaba.net