Hunter Valley community group wins landmark high court climate change case over coalmine

Wendy Wales, president of the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group, said too many Australians were already suffering from ‘extreme weather devastation’. The group won their high court case against a proposed expansion of the the Mount Pleasant coalmine in Muswellbrook. Photograph: Supplied by Grata Fund

A Hunter Valley community group has won Australia’s first high court case to consider climate change, in a ruling advocates say sets a binding national precedent for fossil fuel projects in New South Wales.

In a landmark judgment, the nation’s highest court ruled that the approval of MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine expansion in Muswellbrook was invalid.