Category Archives: Coal

South Korean decision to close all coal-fired power plants by 2040 sounds alarm for Australian exports

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Decision announced at Cop30 climate conference signposts risks for Australia’s reliance on fossil fuel exports, analysts say

The Australian government has been urged to prepare for a shift away from thermal coal exports and accelerate green industries after one of its main international customers signed up to close all coal-fired power plants by 2040.

South Korea, Australia’s third-biggest market for coal burned to generate electricity, announced at the Cop30 climate conference in Brazil that it was joining the “powering past coal alliance”, a group of about 60 nations and 120 sub-national governments, businesses and organisations committed to phasing out the fossil fuel.

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Search for West Virginia miner trapped by floodwater extends into fourth day

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Rescuers have been seeking unnamed man since pocket of water inundated Rolling Thunder mine on Saturday

Emergency responders have been trying to reach a miner trapped deep inside a flooded West Virginia coalmine since Saturday, according to authorities.

A mining crew hit an unknown pocket of water on Saturday about three-quarters of a mile into the Rolling Thunder mine near Drennen, about 50 miles (80km) east of the state capital of Charleston, the Nicholas county commissioner, Garrett Cole, said in a Facebook post.

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Global use of coal hit record high in 2024

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Bleak report finds greenhouse gas emissions are still rising despite ‘exponential’ growth of renewables

Coal use hit a record high around the world last year despite efforts to switch to clean energy, imperilling the world’s attempts to rein in global heating.

The share of coal in electricity generation dropped as renewable energy surged ahead. But the general increase in power demand meant that more coal was used overall, according to the annual State of Climate Action report, published on Wednesday.

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Fiery Senate exchange reveals investigation into coal firm allegedly clearing endangered greater glider habitat

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Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called environment department bureaucrats ‘weak’ - though later withdrew the remark

Australian government officials are investigating whether a coal mining company is putting threatened greater gliders and koalas at risk by illegally clearing bushland in central Queensland without approval under federal law.

The revelation came in a fiery Senate estimates hearing in which the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young criticised the Albanese government for not doing more to stop the clearing and described environment department bureaucrats as “weak” – an allegation she later withdrew.

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Trump administration spending $625m to revive dying coal industry

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White House allocating 13.1m acres of public land to coal mining, which has been on rapid decline over past 30 years

The White House will open 13.1m acres (5.3m hectares) of public land to coal mining while providing $625m for coal-fired power plants, the Trump administration has announced.

The efforts came as part of a suite of initiatives from the Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency, aimed at reviving the flagging coal sector. Coal, the most polluting and costly fossil fuel, has been on a rapid decline over the past 30 years, with the US halving its production between 2008 and 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

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Plan to extend Queensland coalmine would bulldoze ‘critical’ koala habitat

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Glencore says it is working with state and federal governments to minimise the impact of flora and fauna in the 680ha area west of Mackay

Habitat for threatened koalas that are part of a population described by one expert as nationally significant would be bulldozed under plans to extend a Queensland coalmine.

The campaign group Lock the Gate used drones with thermal imaging cameras to find 13 koalas in one night in trees earmarked for clearing by mining company Glencore.

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Commonwealth Bank urged to repay fees of 2 million low-income customers after posting record profit

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Australia’s biggest bank delivers bumper payout to shareholders as CBA vows to end lending to coal companies with no net zero plans

The Commonwealth bank has posted a record cash profit, sparking renewed calls for Australia’s biggest bank to repay more than 2 million low-income customers $270m in fees – something it has refused to do.

CBA recorded $10.25bn in annual cash profits for the year to June – a 4% lift on the previous year – and gave a bumper $2.60 payout per share to shareholders.

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Adani promised Australia billions from its Carmichael mine but it hasn’t paid a cent in tax. How did we get here?

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The coalmine generated millions in revenue in its early days but recorded an operating loss – a pattern that would repeat at scale

It was entirely foreseeable, and has resulted in billions of dollars in forgone revenue for Australia.

But just how did policymakers fail to extract a single cent in company tax from Adani’s Carmichael coalmine, even though it opened during the start of a commodity price boom?

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Nigel Farage’s pitch for Welsh elections: bring back coalmining

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Reform leader says steel and coal industries can be revived but does not say how beyond ‘scrapping net zero’

Nigel Farage has demanded the reopening of domestic coalmines to provide fuel for new blast furnaces, arguing that Welsh people would happily return to mining if the pay was sufficiently high.

Speaking at an event in Port Talbot, the south Wales town traditionally associated with the steel industry, the Reform UK leader said it was in the “national interest” to have a guaranteed supply of steel, as well as UK-produced fuel for the furnaces, a close echo of Donald Trump’s repeated pledges to return heavy industry to the US.

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Trump signs orders to allow coal-fired power plants to remain open

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Move aimed at addressing rise in power demand for datacenters, AI and EVs, but environmentalists call it a step back

Donald Trump signed four executive orders on Tuesday aimed at reviving coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel that has long been in decline, and which substantially contributes to planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

Environmentalists expressed dismay at the news, saying that Trump was stuck in the past and wanted to make utility customers “pay more for yesterday’s energy”.

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Methane emissions from Queensland mine may be gross underestimates, UN research finds

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Data collected by two planes suggests large open-cut coalmine in Bowen Basin is releasing methane at higher rates than official estimates

Emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane at a Queensland coalmine were likely between three and eight times higher than officially reported, according to UN-backed research that flew aircraft over the site.

Queensland’s open-cut coalmines are known to be a major source of methane and experts are worried that official figures could be a gross underestimation of actual emissions.

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Bob Brown urges Greens to punish Labor at election if Albanese amends law to protect salmon farming

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PM’s pledge to protect Tasmanian industry will weaken laws already failing to protect natural sites and at-risk species, environmentalists say

Former Greens leader Bob Brown has urged the minor party not to preference Labor ahead of the Liberal party in Tasmanian seats at the upcoming election if the Albanese government legislates to effectively exempt salmon farming from national environment laws.

Conservationists have sharply criticised Anthony Albanese’s pledge that he will rush through legislation next week to protect the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour, on the state’s west coast, from the potential results of a long-running legal review.

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Farmer’s house in danger from climate change, court told in RWE case

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German coal giant is one of world’s biggest polluters and should contribute to flood defences, says farmer in Peru

A Peruvian farmer’s home is in “concrete danger” from climate change, a court has heard, in the resumption of a decade-long legal battle to get German coal giant RWE to contribute to flood defences in the Andes.

Lawyers for Saúl Luciano Lliuya, who say his home is threatened by rapidly melting glaciers, told the upper regional court in Hamm on Wednesday that the risk of extreme flooding represented a breach of civil law.

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EU ambassador to China urges Beijing to stop building coal-fired power plants

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Jorge Toledo’s comments come after approvals for coal power projects increased in second half of 2024

The EU’s ambassador to China has urged Beijing to stop building coal-fired power plants, saying that its rapid approval of new projects was increasingly at odds with its green ambitions.

Speaking at an EU-hosted event in Beijing, Jorge Toledo said the war in Ukraine had underlined the need for energy security, but that the EU had managed to navigate the issue without reverting to fossil fuels.

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Premier claims WA a ‘renewable energy powerhouse’ but leaked document shows wind and solar projects have ‘stalled’

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Exclusive: Government document confirms electricity from large-scale renewables has flatlined, with one campaigner saying pipeline has ‘little sign of life’

Officials have warned the Western Australian Labor government that work to build wind and solar farms for the state’s main electricity grid has stalled under its leadership, a leaked document shows.

A confidential state government document reveals state bureaucrats advised the government that the “decarbonisation work program” in Perth’s electricity grid had “stalled to date”. It said there were “few new wind developments” advanced enough to be added to the grid before the promised closure of a coal power station in 2027.

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‘Backsliding’: most countries to miss vital climate deadline as Cop30 nears

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Developing countries urge biggest polluters to act as Trump’s return to the White House heightens geopolitical turmoil

The vast majority of governments are likely to miss a looming deadline to file vital plans that will determine whether or not the world has a chance of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown.

Despite the urgency of the crisis, the UN is relatively relaxed at the prospect of the missed date. Officials are urging countries instead to take time to work harder on their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and divest from fossil fuels.

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‘Rising star’: Europe made more electricity from solar than coal in 2024

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Report reveals solar power generated 11% of Europe’s electricity, surpassing coal at 10%

Europe made more electricity from sunshine than coal last year, a report has found, in what analysts called a “milestone” for the clean energy transition.

Solar panels generated 11% of the EU’s electricity in 2024, while coal-burning power plants generated 10%, according to data from climate thinktank Ember. The role of fossil gas fell for the fifth year in a row to cover 16% of the electricity mix.

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Climate activist who graffitied Tanya Plibersek’s office says he stands by his actions

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Environment minister said vandalism and intimidation were ‘completely unacceptable’

A climate activist who graffitied the word “liar” on the federal environment minister’s office has stood by his highly publicised actions, urging the public to stand up for their beliefs.

Zachary “Zack” Edward Jaworowski Schofield took a can of red spray paint to Tanya Plibersek’s Sydney electorate office in December.

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Australia news live: Gallagher says she expects Pocock to trump her in ACT Senate race; more ball-shaped ‘debris’ on Sydney beach

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Detectives investigating four separate incidents of children being approached by drivers in white vans in Melbourne

Victoria police detectives are investigating four separate incidents in Melbourne in the last month of children being approached by drivers in white vans.

People like Mr Rogan prey on people’s vulnerabilities: they prey on fear, they prey on anxiety, they prey on all of the elements that contribute to uncertainty in society.

They entrepreneur fantasy outcomes and conspiracy outcomes as being a normal part of social narrative – I personally find it deeply repulsive.

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Australia’s thirst for power drives a rise in coal and gas-led emissions for third quarter in a row

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Output from gas plants up 29% on average from a year earlier, Aemo says, even though price was up by a fifth over same period

Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s main electricity grid increased for a third quarter in a row as higher power demand drove more use of black coal and gas plants, the Australian Energy Market Operator says.

For the September quarter alone, emissions from the national electricity market (Nem) that serves the eastern states and South Australia rose 2% from a year earlier, Aemo said in its quarterly market report.

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