According Greenpeace a coal basin near Australia Great Barrier Reef will rank among the world worst producers of carbon pollution if fully mined.

The environmental organisation said Queensland Galilee Basin could threaten the global climate as well as destroy local habitat, if all of its thermal coal was mined and burnt.

Greenpeace said in a report 'Cooking the Climate and Wrecking the Reef' that "If the Galilee Basin were a country, the carbon dioxide produced from using this coal would make it the seventh dirtiest fossil fuel burner on the planet."

It said with nine new thermal coal mines in the pipeline five of them bigger than any existing coal mine in Australia, Galilee carbon dioxide output could hit 700 million tonnes per annum once it hits maximum production. This would leave only China, the US, India, Russia, Japan and Germany ahead of the basin in terms of annual carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion.

The proposed mines some of which mining billionaires Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer have stakes in are in various stages of development and Greenpeace said it was possible given their scale and cost and that not all would be built.

It said "Due to the size of each individual mine, however, the impact of even one mine would be considerable. If all nine mines go ahead, the impact on international, national and local environments would be devastating."

The report analysed projected coal demand under several International Energy Agency scenarios, assessing the development of the Galilee Basin under various levels of international action on climate change.

Source - AFP

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