The Australian Conservation Foundation has made the difficult decision not to proceed with our upcoming legal case against Woodside's Scarborough project.
Late last week it became apparent that the case was unlikely to succeed.
The reality is that Australia's laws work in favour of fossil fuel interests. There is still no explicit requirement for climate damage to be considered under our key national nature law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. This means that, even today, major fossil fuel projects are being approved that will lock in huge volumes of carbon pollution well beyond 2050.
This underlines the urgent need for stronger nature protection laws. We need laws that take into consideration the climate damage of fossil fuel projects and reject climate wrecking mines.
As the law is not fit for the climate crisis that we are grappling with here and now, communities are often forced to stand up for nature by challenging the impacts of climate wrecking mines in court. Litigation is expensive and risky, and communities often come up against opponents with far greater resources
This all makes this incredibly complex and difficult work. While the science is crystal clear that coal and gas warm our planet, the weak nature protection laws do not reflect this reality.
We understand how disappointing this news will be to many and implore our federal government to act on their promise to fix our broken nature laws, so that the burden of tackling this issue does not have to be squarely placed on us.
It is disappointing that this case will not be heard in the Federal Court. And we offer our apologies to those who have supported us. We would like to reassure our supporters that litigation remains a key plank of ACF's strategy to stop the impacts of major polluters. Our case against Whitehaven Coal is set down for hearing in June 2025.
Header pic by Xanthi Rivett
