Narrabri underground coal mine. Photo courtesy, Lock the Gate Alliance.

9 September 2026

ALAN HAYES

THE United Nations last Thursday (3 September) warned that the world was on track to miss its 1.5C targets - the northern hemisphere is struggling under extreme heat, drought and flooding from melting glaciers while a super El Nino event will devastate Australian towns and our farming communities over summer.

Australia is the second largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world, behind only Russia, sending most of the coal and gas it digs up overseas, largely with minimal export taxes.

Despite this, the government's weak environmental laws permit the opening of new coal and gas mines, and prevent consideration of a project’s climate impacts.

Without doubt, last week was bad for climate action. On Tuesday, as reported the first gas flowed from the Beetaloo, a fracking project that threatens to release three times Australia’s total annual emissions.

Our government's continued approval of coal and gas mines is accelerating dangerous climate change, slowing the transition to renewable energy, putting millions of lives at risk, and doing little to give credence to its much lauded environmental credentials.

Stopping dangerous climate change demands no new coal or gas approvals - but the current Australian government continues to recklessly sign off on climate bombs.

37 coal and gas mines have already been approved since the Albanese Government took office - that's 37 too many.

The Albanese Government's climate policy is a contradiction of the truth - a hole in the ozone layer of sanity. While the world holds its breath over the climate-driven Nepal flooding disaster, Australia continues to pour fuel on the fire of global warming by opening up new coal and gas mines.

While Nepal is digging out victims of the climate crisis, Australia is digging up the coal that helped put them there.

There is little doubt that the Nepal flooding has given the world a front-row seat, so as to witness the unfolding climate crisis in real time - from fires and heatwaves raging across Europe and North America to glacial collapse and flooding across Asia.

As Pacific Island leaders directly call out Australia’s hypocrisy, our government remains firming seated on it hands - pandering to the machinations of a dinosaur industry that care little for the plight of our planet.

There's little doubt that the government is not so naive to understand that approving 37 new coal and gas projects is favouring fossil fuel profits over their very existence. But it's not just the Labor Government, the Liberals and One Nation keep siding with fossil fuel corporations, even as the climate crisis worsens. They're working for their donors, not people or the planet.