Australia fights court ruling of a climate duty of care

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian government on Monday began its legal challenge to a judge’s landmark decision that the administration has a duty of care to prevent future climate change.

The Federal Court battle over a proposed coal mine expansion comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison battles to persuade his conservative government colleagues to commit to a zero emissions target for Australia by 2050.

The legal battle was started by a group of eight Australian teenage environmentalists, aged 13 to 17, who attempted to force the government to ban an expansion of Whitehaven Coal’s Vickery mine.

Justice Mordy Bromberg in May rejected their bid, while noting the mine expansion would lead to an additional 33 million metric tons (36 million U.S. tons) of coal being extracted over 25 years and 100 million metric tons (110 million U.S. tons) of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.

But the children’s lawyers claimed a victory in that Bromberg also ruled the government has a duty to prevent future climate harm.

Environment Minister Sussan Ley has since approved the mine expansion.

Her lawyers told a full bench of the Federal Court on Monday that there was no evidence that the additional coal from the expanded mine would increase the risk of the global temperature increasing beyond to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures.

The coal would be sold to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, each of which had committed to limit their emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Government lawyer Stephen Donaghue told the three judges that Australia had no control over the greenhouse gases released by those three locations that were burning the coal, which were described in court as Scope 3 emissions.

“It’s difficult to see any...