One Oz Coal Mine Enough For 6% Of Carbon Needed To Leave 2C Increase Behind - Will Banks Fund It?
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Many fewer people have heard of Australias Galilee basin, but thats about to change. Work is scheduled to start in January on turning this remote basin into the worlds biggest coal mine a colliery so vast that this single mine, in a nation with 0.3% of the worlds population, would produce 6% of the carbon necessary to take the planet past a 2C temperature rise, the red line set by the worlds governments.
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In the Galilee its a little different. Australias far right government loves coal its pretty much all they talk about. Its approval of the project can be taken for granted (though polling shows approval of the government itself is another issue, and that Aussies are turning restive at its fanaticism). But building out the ports and railways and giant pits will require huge sums of capital, and so it tests the resolve of the worlds financial system to come to terms with climate.
Any bank that backs this ludicrous plan is announcing, quite plainly, that it cares nothing about climate change. Its also probably worse for a bank announcing that its stuck in the 19th century. Serious financial authorities (the governor of the Bank of England most recently) are warning that fossil fuel reserves risk becoming stranded assets as the world acts on climate change investors in the tar sands, for instance, have already taken an enormous hit, and coal stocks have been tumbling for years. A British cabinet minister warned the other day that they were the subprime assets of the future, a sobering warning for everyone still recovering from the housing bust of 2008.
So far the financial industry is showing relative sobriety. Goldman Sachs, for instance, has announced it wont back the Galilee mines and if youve found something too dirty for Goldman Sachs, thats saying something. Citibank too. Deutsche Bank. HSBC. Campaigners will have to head into the hinterlands of Queensland to try and block preliminary dredging in January just as activists stand by to put their bodies in front of Keystone across Nebraska and South Dakota should Obama give in to the Republicans. Theyll also have to keep up the pressure on any institution or bank that is investing in the fossil fuel industry an upcoming Global Day of Divestment Action next February provides just the opportunity.
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http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/10/keystone-xl-and-galilee-valley-threaten-the-global-climate-talks