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Australia's High Court rules Mount Pleasant coal mine expansion approval invalid over climate emissions

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Version 1Current7 October 2026, 03:43 UTC · created
Story created.
- Timeline added: Australia's High Court ruled 3-2 against MACH Energy, dismissing its appeal and leaving the approval of the Mount Pleasant coal mine expansion in New South Wales invalid.
- Timeline added: The majority found that the state's Independent Planning Commission should have considered conditions to keep the project's greenhouse gas emissions as low as practicable, including from coal burned abroad, and did not.
- Timeline added: MACH Energy said it was disappointed but accepted the decision, and that it would keep pursuing every option to keep the Mount Pleasant mine operating.
- Confirmed: The case was brought by a local community group led by two retired science teachers, Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan.
- Confirmed: MACH Energy said it was disappointed but accepted the decision, and that it would keep pursuing every option to keep the Mount Pleasant mine operating.
- Open question: Almost all of the expansion's projected emissions would come from burning the exported coal, according to the Guardian.
- Open question: Campaigners say this was the first climate case to reach Australia's highest court and that it sets a binding precedent for how fossil fuel projects are assessed.
- Open question: A Greens MP in New South Wales says the ruling could cause legal problems for the recently approved Hunter Valley Operations mine extension.
- Source added: Hunter Valley community group wins landmark high court climate change case over Mount Pleasant coalmine (The Guardian)
- Source added: Australia top court rules against coal mine expansion, citing climate harm (Al Jazeera)