Greens move for 10 year phase-out of thermal coal mining in NSW

Australian Greens Leader Richard Di Natale and NSW Greens energy and resources spokesperson Jeremy Buckingham will today launch a new policy to phase-out thermal coal mining in ten years with a bill that would set up a framework to limit further coal mining to one billion tonnes. 

The policy is a framework for:

• 10 year time limit for thermal coal mining in NSW
• A limit of one billion tonnes of thermal coal production
• A competitive allocation framework for companies to bid to mine coal under a reducing cap
• Mining royalties go to a transition fund for workers and regional economies

Attached is a brief on the framework and also the bill Jeremy Buckingham will introduce into parliament next week.
NSW Greens energy and resources spokesperson Jeremy Buckingham said:

“It is a scientific fact that we cannot continue to burn coal and protect the climate. We must act now before it is too late.

“We have run out of time. We are teetering on the edge of disaster and must act seriously now or we will lock in catastrophic levels of global warming with the significant environmental, economic and social disasters that will be caused by a changing climate.

“A transition away from coal is inevitable. The real question is whether we transition fast enough to protect the climate, and whether it is a managed transition, or a chaotic collapse.

“The Greens are being prudent in seeking to set climate policy according to the science and in setting up a market-based framework to implement a phase-out of thermal coal mining.”

Australian Greens Leader, Senator Richard Di Natale said:

“Since we cannot rely on the federal Government to provide any meaningful action towards mitigating dangerous climate change, we have to rely for now on the states to provide the country with a 21 st century energy policy. That’s exactly what the NSW Greens are proposing to do with this policy of phasing out coal.”

3 March 2017