Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The New South Wales division of the Greens party will this week introduce a Bill to the state Parliament, setting out a ten-year timeline to phase out thermal coal mining in New South Wales.
The Mining Amendment (Climate Protection – Phasing-out Coal Mining) Bill 2017 established a framework for a managed phase-out of coal mining in New South Wales with the aim of combating global warming.
Under the Bill, a maximum of one-billion tonnes of thermal coal can be mined in the state over the next ten years, as opposed to the planned two-billion tonnes currently projected.
The Bill will empower the Minister to implement a competitive process to allocate coal production under yearly caps, with production set to decline from 180-million tonnes in the first year, to 20-million tonnes by year ten.
Mining companies will take part in a competitive auction to buy the right to mine coal during the phase-out period.
“It is a scientific fact that we cannot continue to burn coal and protect the climate. We must act now before it is too late,” said New South Wales Greens energy and resources spokesperson Jeremy Buckingham.
“We have run out of time. We are teetering on the edge of disaster and must act seriously now or we will lock in catastrophic levels of global warming with the significant environmental, economic and social disasters that will be caused by a changing climate.
“A transition away from coal is inevitable. The real question is whether we transition fast enough to protect the climate and whether it is a managed transition or a chaotic collapse.”