Each Sides Declare Victory within the Australian Kids’s Local weather Litigation – What’s Going On?
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
An anti-coal court ruling so deliciously ambiguous that everyone feels like a winner.
The Australian court finds that the government has a duty to protect young people from the climate crisis
Eight teenagers and an 86-year-old nun have initiated proceedings to prevent a massive coal mine from being approved
Adam Morton Environment Editor @adamlmorton
Thu 27 May 2021 14.35 AEST
The Australian Federal Court found that Environment Minister Sussan Ley has a duty of care to protect young people from the climate crisis in a judgment of lawyers and teenagers who brought the case forward as a world first.
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Judge Mordecai Bromberg stated that the minister had a duty of care not to act in a way that would harm younger people in the future. But he did not issue the injunction because he was not satisfied that the minister was violating her duty of care.
David Barnden, an attorney representing the children, said it was a historic and “amazing decision” with potentially significant consequences.
“The court found that the minister owed a duty of care to younger children and vulnerable people, and that duty states that the minister must not act in ways that cause harm to people – future harm -” he said in court. “It is the first time in the world that such a duty of care has been recognized, especially in a country with common law.”
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Whitehaven Coal had a different interpretation of the judgment. A statement to the stock exchange failed to mention the duty of care, and it was welcomed that the court dismissed the juveniles’ attempt to prevent Ley from authorizing the mine expansion.
“Our consistent position was that this legal claim was unfounded,” it said. “Whitehaven looks forward to … approval for the Vickery expansion project and will keep the market informed accordingly.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/27/australian-court-finds-government-has-duty-to-protect-young-people-from-climate-crisis
Environment Minister Sussan Ley is not a friend of the green movement. WUWT reported on her hilarious visit to the Great Barrier Reef in 2019, where she asked scientists to show her all of the dead coral. What she found naturally was lots of healthy corals.
So it’s possible Ley approves the coal mine – to ensure that well-paying jobs in coal mining can be seen as part of their due diligence towards future generations.
But who knows what will actually happen in these crazy times?
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