A Hunter Valley community group has won Australia’s first high court case to consider climate change, in a ruling advocates say sets a binding national precedent for fossil fuel projects in New South Wales. In a landmark judgment, the nation’s highest court upheld an unanimous ruling by the NSW court of appeal that overturned MACH Energy’s proposed expansion of its Mount Pleasant coalmine in Muswellbrook. In a 3-2 split ruling, the high court dismissed the coal company’s appeal, with a majority of judges finding the state’s planning commission was required to consider how to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions that would be generated by the mine when the coal is sold and burnt overseas, and failed to do so.
A majority of the court found the Independent Planning Commission failed to consider imposing conditions aimed at minimising these emissions – known as scope 3 emissions – to the greatest extent possible. The Mount Pleasant expansion would double the mine’s coal output to 21m tonnes per annum until 2048. Some 98% of the projected emissions are scope 3 emissions.
Wendy Wales is a retired science teacher and the president of the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group (Dams Heg) – the community group that brought the original case. We must live within nature’s limits and this ruling endorses that.” Wales said the ruling was an acknowledgment that many Australians had “already suffered extreme weather devastation”. She said lawmakers needed to turn their “full attention” to addressing climate change.
The proceedings, brought by MACH Energy, were the first time Australia’s highest court had been asked to consider a case on climate grounds. MACH had appealed a 2025 decision by the NSW court of appeal that overturned a massive expansion of the company’s Mount Pleasant mine in Muswellbrook. In the initial proceedings brought by the community group in the Land and Environment Court, that court ruled in favour of MACH Energy.
Wales, her partner Tony Longeran and the Dams Heg community group have pursued the case through the courts for more than four years. A MACH Energy spokesperson said the company was disappointed with the outcome but accepted the court’s decision. They said the company would carefully review the judgment “to understand its implications for future project assessments and environmental approvals”.
They added the company would “continue to actively pursue all available options to ensure the long-term continuity of the Mount Pleasant Operation”. The spokesperson said MACH Energy pursued the appeal to “obtain clarity on important questions regarding the scope of mandatory considerations in environmental decision-making”. They said “thousands” of Hunter residents who relied on the Mount Pleasant mine for employment and income had “lived with fear and uncertainty for too long”.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
