A community goes to court to challenge the extension of a fossil fuel development. They argue – among other things – that the environmental assessment should have covered the climate impacts of burning the fuel to be produced. They lose in the first court and take their case to the court of appeal….
Sound familiar?
It’s not the Weald Action Group this time, but a local group fighting coal in New South Wales, Australia.
Weald Action Group campaigners met Wendy Wales in London this week. Wendy, together with her partner Tony and the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Healthy Environment Group Inc., have been fighting plans to extend the life of a giant opencast coal mine adjacent to their family farm, for years.
They lodged a legal challenge when Indonesian mining company Mach Energy received permission to extract 21 million tonnes of coal a year from the Mount Pleasant coal mine until 2048. After losing in the first court, they won in the New South Wales Court of Appeals in July 2025.
The court overturned the approval as the planners had failed to consider the environmental impacts of all emissions associated with the project. While scope 1 and 2 emissions were considered in detail, around 98% of the emissions from the project will occur when the coal is burned overseas (most Australian coal is exported to Asia). These scope 3 emissions were not considered at all.
This was a landmark ruling, likely to have significant impacts for future coal developments in New South Wales and beyond. However Mach Energy, has appealed, and Wendy and her team will be in the High Court (Australia’s highest court) on 13 May to defend their win.
Read more about the case here: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jul/24/significant-legal-breakthrough-as-nsw-court-blocks-coal-mine-expansion-over-emissions
Parallels between Australian coal and Surrey oil cases
It was great to meet Wendy and discover the parallels between our campaigns. We have much in common. We talked about the shortcomings of the planning regimes, failings of the regulators, and the high cost of fighting legal cases. And we celebrated that local organising can achieve big wins, even against huge challenges like the climate crisis.
We were pleased to hear that our win over oil production at Horse Hill in Surrey had been cited in another courtroom 10,000 miles away!
We will be rooting for Wendy and the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Healthy Environment Group on 13 May.
If you have some cash to spare, please consider donating to their crowdfunder: https://chuffed.org/project/australiaclimatecase