'Don't fund coal projects': top scientists pen open letter to banks

An open letter from nine Australian scientists is calling on banks not to fund coal projects in Queensland's Galilee Basin.

The majority of Australia's coal must stay below ground, for the sake of future generations, leading Australian scientists say. Source: AAP

An open letter published on Friday (May 22) is calling on the world’s banks to not fund coal projects in Queensland’s Galilee Basin.

Nine scientists, including Nobel Prize winner Professor Peter Doherty and former Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Stanley, have said the majority of Australia’s coal should stay below ground for the sake of future generations.

“The development of the Galilee Basin would play a major part in widespread suffering over a century time scale and beyond,” the letter says.

The burning of coal is a leading contributor to rising levels of carbon emissions in the world's atmosphere, with the average dioxide concentration of the Earth's atmosphere at the highest level in 23 million years, Scientific American reported in March.

At the current rate, the world will not avoid the worst effects of climate change, the professors say in their open letter.

“The anticipated impacts of a 4 - 6 degree Celsius increase on the climate are disastrous by any measure,” the letter says.

The open letter says banks have a responsibility to not fund coal projects under the agreed Equator Principles, which is a global agreement on best practices for financial institutions, the open letter says.

Australia’s big four banks – ANZ, Commonwealth, Westpac and National Australia Bank – are signatories to the Equator Principles, as are 76 other institutions worldwide.

The Equator Principles preamble states: “We recognise the importance of climate change, biodiversity, and human rights, and believe negative impacts on project-affected ecosystems, communities, and the climate should be avoided where possible.”

While Australia's population is relatively small, this country is one of the largest emitters worldwide of greenhouse gasses per capita, not including Australian coal burned overseas, data from the World Bank shows.

Currently, several mines in the Galilee Basin are facing legal challenges.

One of those is the proposed Adani coalmine, which Central Queensland Indigenous Traditional Owners oppose.

The Traditional Owners say the project would be environmentally and culturally harmful.

The open letter was originally published here.