The outcry was loud and swift last week after Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek approved a new coal mine in central Queensland. It’s the first coal mine Labor has approved since coming to power a year ago.
The project, the Isaac River mine, will extract metallurgical coal to be burned for steel-making. Environmental groups decried the potential damage the mine would cause to wildlife, water quality and the climate.
Any new coal mine is inconsistent with the global goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. But the Isaac River mine is probably the least bad of those recently under consideration.
