ANOTHER nail in the coffin of coal?
It would certainly seem that way, after the Federal Court yesterday finalised a class action brought by eight teenagers and a nun against Whitehaven's proposed reopening of the Vickery coalmine at Gunnedah.
In his decision, Justice Mordecai Bromberg found the federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, has "a duty to take reasonable care", while exercising her powers under relevant sections of federal environmental laws, "to avoid causing personal injury or death to persons who were under 18 years of age and ordinarily resident in Australia at the time of the commencement of this proceeding arising from emissions of carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere".
The teenage applicants, their lawyers and the broader green movement were quick off the mark to hail the decision as "historic".
And on an initial reading, it certainly sounds as though the federal government now has a considerable shadow hanging over the approvals process, given the notion that a risk, once accepted, cannot be legally ignored.
Despite the joy on the side of the applicants, the Minerals Council of Australia - which also has lawyers able to parse the finer meanings of sometimes esoteric court judgements - downplayed the importance of the decision.
Time, of course, will show who has the upper hand once the dust settles, but the Vickery verdict is simply the latest in a series of legal skirmishes that are tending to hem in the Australian coal industry, bit by bit.
At first, these court cases tended to be over local environmental issues: water, rare and endangered species or air quality.
But since the 2019 Rocky Hill decision, which brought Scope III emissions into play, the carbon dioxide emissions of burning Australian coal - even if bound for export - have become a rod for the industry's back.
The Vickery decision appears to turn on the idea that if the mine is approved and bushfires or heatwaves occur, then the minister will be held somehow responsible.
If this is the case, some might say that is hard to square with the judge's earlier observation, in May, that Vickery would have a "tiny" - if measurable - impact on global warming.
This and other aspects of the case will no doubt exercise legal minds in the days and weeks to come.
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