Antinuclear

As an Indian activist now working in Australian for a healthy environment, I have a personal interest in seeing a firm cooperation between both countries I call home based on clean technologies which combat climate change. Which is why I was very disappointed to hear Prime Minister Tony Abbott blithely say that “coal is good for humanity”.

If Australia’s largest coal mine becomes operational, it will extract and export 60 million tonnes of coal each year to India, producing four times the emission of New Zealand. Federal environment minister Greg Hunt approved the Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin in Queensland this July even as scientists, environmental groups, tourism operators and concerned Australians strongly opposed the sounding of the death knell for the Great Barrier Reef from the twin effects of transporting coal across the reef and burning it in a climate change threatened future.

Last month, Indian activist Debi Goenka made history when he appeared before the Land Court of Queensland to appeal against the Adani Enterprises owned Carmichael coal mine decision, making his organisation Conservation Advocacy Trust the first international party to object to a Queensland mine. Goenka reminded the Australian government that “coal is not the solution to energy poverty” and that “India’s people are best served by renewable energy sources like wind, solar and small-scale hydropower”India has nearly four hundred million rural poor. Rural India, even in coal rich states, remain largely unconnected to the central coal-fired power grid. Australia’s coal exports have been purported to benefit these rural poor, but that is far from the truth. According to the International Energy Agency, 147 million Indians will remain without electricity into 2030 under a business as usual scenario emphasising coal. Apart from aggravating global warming, coal also causes 80,000-115,000 premature deaths in India per year.