tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/whitehaven-coal-4535/articles
Whitehaven coal – The Conversation
2022-12-15T18:22:00Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196546
2022-12-15T18:22:00Z
2022-12-15T18:22:00Z
Cumbria coal mine: how to understand local support for the new pit
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501276/original/file-20221215-22-u66qcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3876%2C2576&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Whitehaven Harbour at dusk.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wave-whitehaven-harbour-cumbria-405992074">West Lakes Images/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government recently approved a new coal mine in Whitehaven, a small coastal town in Cumbria, northwest England. The first mine to be given the go-ahead in 30 years is expected to produce <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/07/uk-first-new-coalmine-for-30-years-gets-go-ahead-in-cumbria">2.8 million tonnes</a> of coking coal a year for steelmaking, and provide 500 new jobs. The decision has provoked an outcry, particularly because of its potential climate impact. Emissions from burning this coal are expected to add <a href="https://slacc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Cumbria-Carbon-Baseline-Report-2019-200229-Final.pdf">8.4 million tonnes</a> of CO₂ into the atmosphere a year.</p>
<p>But in Whitehaven, the decision has largely been met with relief. As a researcher engaged in an ongoing <a href="https://climatecitizens.org.uk/transitioninwc/">three-year long project</a> to document local attitudes towards industry, I have tried to understand why support for the mine exists in Whitehaven. The arguments I present here are preliminary findings from my interviews with a demographically representative sample of residents, but these have not yet been published in an academic journal. </p>
<p>Media commentary has so far presented a partial account of why locals are generally in favour of the mine. <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/whitehaven-divided-new-coalmine-brings-28682082">Some suggest</a> that deprivation is most responsible and that amid poverty, the mine’s promise of economic renewal is enticing. There is some truth to this account, but it overlooks the area’s complicated demography. <a href="https://dclgapps.communities.gov.uk/imd/iod_index.html">Government data</a> shows that wealth exists alongside deprivation in Whitehaven. Many of the community’s pro-mine voices are retired or otherwise comfortable.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/07/opening-coalmine-cumbria-climate-crime-against-humanity">Other commentators</a> have described a yearning among Whitehaven’s community for a bygone industrial past. The town’s history is often discussed in favourable terms by the people I speak to. But the problem with words like “nostalgia” is that they imply people are merely sentimental about the past. Leaving aside the patronising undertones, this view obscures the fact that people have good reason to feel that changes in recent decades have not always worked in the area’s favour.</p>
<h2>Memories are an important factor</h2>
<p>Many of the people I’ve come to know through my research have described a way of life that was eroded. Older groups, where I have found support for the mine to be most pronounced, recount their memories of when Whitehaven was a thriving industrial hub. They can recall how, throughout much of the 20th century, dozens of pits were open along the coast, and Whitehaven harbour, where coal was shipped to the rest of the world, was a frenzy of activity. The Haig pit was the last to close in the mid-1980s.</p>
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<span class="caption">Whitehaven Harbour today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/whitehaven-cumbria-coast-town-candlestick-chimney-1981439972">Charlesy/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Even those in middle age can remember a more vibrant past. Many talk about the large chemical factory which towered over Whitehaven and employed many thousands of people. Marchon was opened in 1962 and closed <a href="http://pos-landcare.com/case_studies/marchon-works/#:%7E:text=The%20site%20finally%20closed%20in,remains%20undeveloped%20to%20this%20day.">in 2005</a>. The factory was razed to the ground and the site now lies empty, with only the perimeter fence and its entrance gates remaining.</p>
<p>Industry provided jobs, but it did more for the area than pay the weekly wage, they say. Social life was ordered around the mines and factories, giving people a sense of identity and direction. As many of my interviewees have suggested, west Cumbria felt like the heart of a modern, expanding global economy. One man proudly explained that Workington steel, produced by burning coal dug up from Whitehaven, could be “found across the world”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cumbrian-coal-the-18th-century-poem-that-perfectly-encapsulated-whitehavens-mining-culture-196594">Cumbrian coal: the 18th-century poem that perfectly encapsulated Whitehaven’s mining culture</a>
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<p>Others explain that, for working-class communities where value often lies in manual work, there were multiple opportunities to put your labour to use. “You could leave school on a Friday and start work on a Monday”, as one person put it to me. This stands in stark contrast to the situation in Whitehaven today, where what geographer <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jcckX3RXO8wC&oi=fnd&pg=PT8&dq=linda+mcdowell+mcjobs&ots=hl9iKPp3FZ&sig=GPXgNWyNXNW9GJPN6g5APQn0044&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=linda%20mcdowell%20mcjobs&f=false">Linda McDowell</a> has called the “McJobs” of the service sector are increasingly prevalent, and work is more precarious and often less skilled.</p>
<p>Whitehaven’s high street and town centre is now in a state of disrepair. Shops are boarded up. Once grand Georgian buildings lie empty while paint slowly peels from their exteriors. A group of young people I spoke with described it as a “ghost town”. Some say they are embarrassed at the state the town is in. </p>
<p>While the biggest local employer, Sellafield – a company which is decommissioning what was once an active nuclear power station also called Sellafield – provides secure and often very well-paid work for 11,000 people locally and thousands more through its supply chain, many feel the community is overly reliant on it, especially as work opportunities there are decreasing.</p>
<p>It didn’t have to be this way. The sense of “steady decline” in Whitehaven, as one person I spoke to described it, is not the result of something inevitable. It is due to decisions taken over time by <a href="https://theconversation.com/levelling-up-the-uk-is-a-golden-opportunity-for-climate-action-but-the-government-is-failing-176415">politicians and the wealthy constituencies</a> they respond to about which areas are worth investing in and which aren’t. The result has been a tacit settlement to concentrate investment in the south-east, and abandon communities elsewhere.</p>
<h2>What’s the alternative?</h2>
<p>How can the government fix the social conditions which make a new coal mine desirable? Perhaps, with a proactive industrial policy which offers places like Whitehaven a part in building an economy which meets the needs of today.</p>
<p>Several blueprints for this kind of change exist. <a href="https://cafs.org.uk/2021/03/12/cumbria-could-create-9000-green-jobs-cafs-report-shows/">One report</a> by the charity Cumbria Action for Sustainability estimated that 9,000 green jobs – deploying renewable energy installations such as wind turbines and renovating homes to make them more energy efficient – could be created with the right programme of investment. </p>
<p>An idea floated at the 2019 general election involved building a steel recycling plant just north of Whitehaven in Workington. A factory of this nature would resonate with the area’s heritage, and provide a bridge between its past and reimagined green industrial future.</p>
<p>Until the political organisation exists to make ideas like this a reality, the same mistakes will arise, with new fossil fuel projects offering the only investment to communities eager for some alternative to decline.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on December 16 2022 to correct the estimated emissions from the new coal mine.</em></p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pancho Lewis receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. He is a member of the Labour Party and was until recently a Westminster City councillor.</span></em></p>
Local people describe a purposeful past in this former mining community – and a bleak future.
Pancho Lewis, Researcher, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196594
2022-12-15T10:53:41Z
2022-12-15T10:53:41Z
Cumbrian coal: the 18th-century poem that perfectly encapsulated Whitehaven’s mining culture
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500997/original/file-20221214-4633-u73s9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C30%2C2509%2C1398&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Whitehaven, Cumbria, Showing Flatt Hall by Matthias Read (1730-1735). </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:999">Yale Center for British Art</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The debates waged over the opening of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/cumbria-coal-mine-empty-promises-of-carbon-capture-tech-have-excused-digging-up-more-fossil-fuel-for-decades-196242">Woodhouse Colliery</a> in Whitehaven, Cumbria, have laid bare starkly different views about the steps the UK should take to honour its <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-uks-net-zero-target-is-under-threat-because-theres-no-plan-to-pay-for-it-183412">net zero commitments</a>.</p>
<p>On December 7, Communities Secretary Michael Gove <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1122625/22-12-07_Whitehaven_-_Decision_Letter_and_IR.pdf">issued a letter</a> approving the colliery’s creation, but his statement might not be the last word on the matter. The colliery’s opponents seem <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-63899345">poised to launch a legal challenge</a>. </p>
<p>This crossroads presents the opportunity to reflect on the role coal has played in Whitehaven’s development.</p>
<p>Several sources shed light on how mining fuelled the town’s growth. Among the most surprising, though, is an 18th-century poem.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/o4984-w0030.shtml">A Descriptive Poem: Addressed To Two Ladies, At Their Return From Viewing The Mines Near Whitehaven</a>, written by the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiiq_qM9vj7AhUFS8AKHS8cDPAQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org%2Fauthors%2Fpers00218.shtml&usg=AOvVaw08KWQhLUSCUleRGbEfGORJ">Reverend John Dalton</a> in the mid-1750s, is an extraordinary work. It not only describes a tour of one of Whitehaven’s mines but also celebrates the ingenuity and industriousness of the town’s people.</p>
<h2>A brief history of mining in west Cumbria</h2>
<p>It’s often thought that coal mining got started during the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-industrial-revolution-really-tells-us-about-the-future-of-automation-and-work-82051">Industrial Revolution</a>, but that’s not the case. People <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/an-environmental-history-of-medieval-europe/BC5AACBBD6500062F43F33FE15D539C5">relied on coal</a> long before the steam engine. The monks of St Bees Priory granted permission for coal to be dug around Whitehaven as early as the 13th century.</p>
<p>The intensive extraction of coal in west Cumbria got started some 400 years later, after the area around Whitehaven was <a href="https://deeds.library.utoronto.ca/cartularies/0111">acquired by the Lowther family</a>. The family’s investments guided Whitehaven’s growth and the local coal industry began to boom.</p>
<p>In 1660, Whitehaven was <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/coal-and-tobacco/197ECC67589C5AAA33A26CCFB4E32CCA">little more than a fishing village</a>. A century later, it was regarded as one of the nation’s <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/728246">most important towns</a>. </p>
<p>In 1727, author <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?cc=ecco;c=ecco;idno=004843899.0001.003;node=004843899.0001.003:6;seq=241;page=root;view=text">Daniel Defoe claimed</a> it ranked second only to Newcastle for the “shipping off of coals”, and in the decades that followed Whitehaven became an increasingly populous and diverse place.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500994/original/file-20221214-5213-hnc795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of Daniel Defoe wearing a large wig and red shirt." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500994/original/file-20221214-5213-hnc795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500994/original/file-20221214-5213-hnc795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500994/original/file-20221214-5213-hnc795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500994/original/file-20221214-5213-hnc795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500994/original/file-20221214-5213-hnc795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500994/original/file-20221214-5213-hnc795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500994/original/file-20221214-5213-hnc795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Author Daniel Defoe wrote about Whitehaven in his book A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.rmg.co.uk/search/?searchQuery=Daniel+defoe">© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>There were several Jewish tradesmen in the town by the later 1700s and at least 89 people of African heritage were recorded in Whitehaven’s parish registers between 1701 and 1809. </p>
<p><a href="https://cumbria.gov.uk/elibrary/Content/Internet/542/796/41381124341.PDF">Those peoples’ stories</a> affirm that Whitehaven’s growth was driven by more than just coal mining. The town was also actively involved in the transatlantic slave trade. </p>
<p><a href="https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/slavery-connections-marble-hill-house/">The Lowthers</a>, for their part, owned shares in the Royal African Company and a sugar plantation in Barbados.</p>
<p>Still, coal mining was the keystone of Whitehaven’s economy and the prosperity the mines brought to the town is reflected in a range of 18th-century artworks. The landscape paintings the Lowther family commissioned from artist Matthias Read are the most vivid examples.</p>
<h2>The art of the coal mine</h2>
<p>Matthias Read’s <a href="https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:999">Prospect View of Whitehaven</a> (1730-1735) is a bold, idealised composition. It portrays Whitehaven as a place of progress, confidence and aspiration. In this respect, his paintings find a counterpart in John Dalton’s poem.</p>
<p>A Descriptive Poem: Addressed To Two Ladies, At Their Return From Viewing The Mines Near Whitehaven was written in the mid-1750s. Dalton was a local, in a manner of speaking. He’d been raised in Whitehaven but left home to pursue a career as a poet and a churchman. He kept close ties to the Lowthers (who were his patrons) and his Descriptive Poem reflects those links.</p>
<p>The two ladies mentioned in the poem’s title were daughters of Robert and Katherine Lowther, whose son James inherited Whitehaven and its mines in 1755. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501000/original/file-20221214-4663-21pej1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Oil painting of the Whitehaven vista showing the town's development, beach and rolling countryside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501000/original/file-20221214-4663-21pej1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501000/original/file-20221214-4663-21pej1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501000/original/file-20221214-4663-21pej1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501000/original/file-20221214-4663-21pej1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501000/original/file-20221214-4663-21pej1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501000/original/file-20221214-4663-21pej1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501000/original/file-20221214-4663-21pej1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Matthias Read’s A Bird’s-Eye View of Whitehaven (1736). One of three paintings of this view undertaken by the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-birds-eye-view-of-whitehaven-143316">The Beacon Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>Robert and Katherine had three daughters – Margaret, Katherine and Barbara. We don’t know which two Dalton had in mind, but his poem makes plain that he had accompanied them on a tour of Whitehaven’s undersea mine, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiez-Gu9_j7AhXKbMAKHclNAAwQFnoECBAQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitehaven.org.uk%2Fsaltom.html&usg=AOvVaw29FbfCrm_xu535fFTsveNw">the Saltom Pit</a>, in 1754.</p>
<p>Touring mines and caves was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/96/3/873/52914">a fashionable pastime</a> during the 1700s. It appealed to thrill seekers and curious minds alike, and the people who wrote about it often drew comparisons with the journeys to the underworld described in epic poems. Dalton’s poem does just that. It draws heavily on passages from <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-virgils-aeneid-85459">Virgil’s Aeneid</a> as well as Milton’s Paradise Lost.</p>
<p>What’s most interesting about the poem, though, is that it pays less attention to coal itself than to the industriousness and enterprising spirit of Whitehaven’s people. </p>
<p>Dalton only uses the word “coal” once in the poem. His descriptive energies are instead dedicated to praising the new inventions the mines had inspired and the prosperity that ingenuity had brought to the town.</p>
<p>This “creative commerce”, Dalton declares, was the true “glory of the mine”.</p>
<h2>Cause for reflection</h2>
<p>These words, and the idea they convey, are worth remembering at the present hour.</p>
<p>Most of us would probably be reluctant to celebrate carbon capitalism as full-throatedly as Dalton did. Still, the emphasis he placed on “creative commerce” seems salient when we consider the concerns that have been expressed about the Woodhouse Colliery.</p>
<p>We know that there’s no long-term future in fossil fuels. We’d do well to support the kinds of “creative commerce” that can yield the energy solutions we so sorely need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Donaldson has previously received research funding from the AHRC and ESRC.</span></em></p>
As opponents of the Whitehaven Colliery protest, an expert on the cultural history of British landscapes revisits an 18th-century poem that reminds us of the town’s industrious spirit.
Christopher Donaldson, Lecturer in Cultural History, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196242
2022-12-08T17:11:07Z
2022-12-08T17:11:07Z
Cumbria coal mine: empty promises of carbon capture tech have excused digging up more fossil fuel for decades
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499795/original/file-20221208-13117-uu5no9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5472%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/coal-mining-miner-man-hands-background-773326039">Small smiles/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea that a technology called carbon capture and storage (CCS) could catch molecules of CO₂ as they emerge from the chimneys of power stations and factories has been around for more than two decades. Michael Gove, the secretary of state responsible for “levelling up” the UK’s regions, recently <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1122625/22-12-07_Whitehaven_-_Decision_Letter_and_IR.pdf">justified</a> his approval of the UK’s first new coal mine in 30 years with “increased use of CCS”. There’s only one problem: CCS won’t cancel out Woodhouse Colliery’s emissions, which are estimated at <a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/letter-deep-coal-mining-in-the-uk/">400,000 tonnes a year</a>, because it barely exists.</p>
<p>The UK government first started talking about <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Dooley-2/publication/233920504_Modeling_Carbon_Capture_and_Disposal_Technologies_in_Energy_and_Economic_Models/links/09e4150d35cb5a38f3000000/Modeling-Carbon-Capture-and-Disposal-Technologies-in-Energy-and-Economic-Models.pdf">CCS</a> in the late 1990s,
when it was looking to meet and exceed its commitment to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. </p>
<p>The fact that developing countries like China and India were planning to burn coal for decades made the UK consider starting a CCS industry as its “gift to the world”, in the words of one senior lobbyist I interviewed for <a href="https://idric.org/project/mip-4-3-the-politics-of-industrial-decarbonisation-policy/">research</a> into industrial decarbonisation.</p>
<p>It’s obvious why oil and gas companies like the idea of CCS. Fossil fuel firms can keep extracting and selling their product (coking coal for the steel industry in the case of the new mine in Cumbria, north-west England, almost all of which is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/07/what-is-the-cumbrian-coalmine-and-why-does-it-matter-woodhouse-colliery">expected to be exported</a>) and mopping up the climate-wrecking emissions is someone else’s responsibility. Politicians have been more circumspect. Some have chafed at the enormous upfront cost of developing and installing CCS and sinking taxpayers’ money into a potential white elephant.</p>
<p>Over the last 20 years in the UK, the future potential of CCS has been used to justify <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/commons/lib/research/key_issues/key-issues-carbon-capture-and-storage.pdf">prolonging coal power</a>, making hydrogen fuel from the <a href="https://www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/H21-Executive-Summary-Interactive-PDF-July-2016-V2.pdf">potent greenhouse gas methane</a> and building <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2310917-net-zero-the-uk-is-building-its-last-big-gas-power-plant/#:%7E:text=One%20is%20Keadby%203%2C%20a,world%27s%20first%20hydrogen%20power%20station">more gas-fired power stations</a>.</p>
<p>Advocates of a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/geo-engineering-research-the-government-s-view/uk-governments-view-on-greenhouse-gas-removal-technologies-and-solar-radiation-management">greenhouse gas removal industry</a> which would scrub excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere now envisage a vast network of pipes and ships transporting captured CO₂ to storage facilities. One group known as the <a href="https://coalitionfornegativeemissions.org/">Coalition for Negative Emissions</a>, composed of energy firms and airlines among other companies, sees the potential in CCS to allow societies to “decarbonise while ensuring continued economic progress”. It also <a href="https://coalitionfornegativeemissions.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/The-Case-for-Negative-Emissions-Coalition-for-Negative-Emissions-report-FINAL.pdf">points out</a>, (fairly, in my opinion) that “the enabling infrastructure [has] significant scale-up times [and] this acceleration needs to start today”.</p>
<p>Amid all these breathless position papers and adverts, it can be easy to forget that pilot programmes for CCS have been plagued by <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/eab9f078-71ae-11e4-9048-00144feabdc0#axzz3L8Z1fKlp">cost-overruns</a> and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saskpower-abandons-carbon-capture-at-boundary-dam-4-and-5-1.4739107">operational failures</a>. CCS is still many years away from <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-oil-industrys-pivot-to-carbon-capture-and-storage-while-it-keeps-on-drilling-isnt-a-climate-change-solution-171791?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Imagine%20016&utm_content=Imagine%20016+CID_a71ef059d31714b91256ddaf5fc92913&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=a%20license%20to%20keep%20polluting">making a dent</a> in humanity’s emissions, even if everything goes much more smoothly than it has – repeatedly - in the past.</p>
<p>To use the possible commercial existence of CCS some time in the future as a reason to wave through a high-carbon development now, as Gove has done, is a good example of what some fellow academics have called “<a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0749">mitigation deterrence</a>”.</p>
<p>Meaning, efforts at mitigating climate change (by reducing the amount of carbon spewed into the atmosphere) are deterred by the real or imagined existence of future technologies that might work. It’s the equivalent of smoking more and more cigarettes each day and gambling that a cure for cancer will exist by the time you need it.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Hudson receives funding from the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre</span></em></p>
Here’s what I’ve learned from researching the history of UK climate policy.
Marc Hudson, Visiting Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/181973
2022-04-26T14:04:28Z
2022-04-26T14:04:28Z
A new coal mine in Cumbria makes no sense for the climate – or Britain’s energy security
<p>A flurry of <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10749265/The-coal-comeback-Michael-Gove-greenlight-UKs-coal-decades.html">newspaper</a> <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/cumbria-coal-mine-gove-woodhouse-b2065013.html">articles</a> has speculated that Michael Gove, the UK minister responsible for planning, will shortly approve the long-debated proposal for a new deep coal mine in Cumbria, northern England. Look closer, and this speculation is based on one unnamed source who told <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/04/23/britains-first-new-coal-mine-decades-verge-approval/">The Sunday Telegraph</a>: “I don’t know for certain, but I get the impression he is going to approve it.” Not exactly a firm yes, then.</p>
<p>As a Cumbria resident and a climate governance specialist, I have followed the complex discussions and legal processes on the mine over the past few years. Misinformation has featured strongly, as I have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/27/dig-coal-to-save-the-climate-the-folly-of-cumbrias-plans-for-a-new-coalmine">documented</a>. These latest rumours could be genuine – or they could just be a carefully orchestrated campaign by the mine’s supporters, who have now seized on Russia’s war in Ukraine to make a case for domestic coal production.</p>
<p>Before we get to the Russia point, here’s a recap. West Cumbria Mining, backed by venture capital company EMR, first proposed the mine in 2014, and was backed by Cumbria County Council. But the proposals have been stuck in the planning process since then. After the UK parliament passed more stringent carbon targets in 2019, setting in law the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, questions about the climate effects of the mine mounted. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/letter-deep-coal-mining-in-the-uk/">Climate Change Committee raised concerns</a>. Two former UK chief scientific advisers, David King and Bob Watson, and even the US climate envoy John Kerry, all <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/john-kerry-cop26-cumbria-mine-coal-b1814428.html">criticised the plans</a>. In response, the government took the decision away from the local planning committee and called a public inquiry led by a planning inspector, which took place last autumn. The inspector has now made a recommendation to Michael Gove, but his findings will not be published until Gove makes his final decision. </p>
<h2>Need for steel</h2>
<p>The case for the mine has always rested on two, linked arguments: that the mine will not result in increases in global carbon emissions, and will therefore not harm the climate; and that the coal is needed for the UK steel industry. On the first point, the evidence is clear. No new coal mines can be built if we are to remain within the globally agreed goal of keeping warming to 1.5°C. This was confirmed in a recent report by the <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050">International Energy Agency</a>, and by <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8">peer-reviewed scientific research</a>, presented to the public inquiry by world-renowned experts including former UK science chief Bob Watson.</p>
<p>In political debate, much has been made of the second argument, that the mine will provide a domestic source of coal for UK steelworks. But the mining company itself told the public inquiry that nearly all the coal from the mine – around 85% – would be exported, not least because <a href="https://www.endsreport.com/article/1708768/case-cumbrian-mine-lies-tatters-questions-surface-sulphur-content-coal">it contains too much sulphur for the UK market</a>. They couldn’t find UK steel companies willing to say that they would use the coal. </p>
<p>Might this have changed, now that Russian aggression has changed the geopolitical landscape? The steel experts I’ve spoken to say not. The war in Russia may provide political cover, but hasn’t changed the fundamentals. The coal has a limited market in the UK. The best thing for energy security and climate stability would be to help the steel industry transition to low-carbon steel, using hydrogen – a <a href="https://theconversation.com/steel-is-vital-to-the-green-transition-heres-how-to-scrub-out-the-industrys-emissions-154768">proven technology</a>.</p>
<h2>The mine that makes no sense</h2>
<p>It is my job, as an academic, to assess evidence. I have followed every step of this case over years now, including the weeks-long public inquiry. I have trawled through many pages of detailed documents. My conclusion, shared by the many economists, steel industry experts and climate scientists who contributed to the public inquiry, is that the mine makes no sense for the climate, or for energy security.</p>
<p>Why, then, might it be approved? The truth lies in the complex, ambiguous and contradictory laws in the UK. The country has strong carbon targets, enshrined in the Climate Change Act, yet it is not clear where responsibility for meeting these targets falls. Local government has no statutory responsibilities on climate change, nor does Michael Gove’s own department. In practice, it is far too easy to claim that those targets are someone else’s responsibility. </p>
<p>Planning law, meanwhile, requires consideration of climate change in any planning decision – yet, again, there are no clear rules on how this should be applied to individual decisions, even ones as momentous as a coal mine. As a result, cases like the mine, as well as proposals for fracking sites and oil wells, are played out again and again in the courts. This mess plays right into the hands of powerful economic and political interests, whose <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-discourses-of-delay-are-used-to-slow-climate-action">tactics have switched</a> from denying climate science to questioning and delaying climate action. At the public inquiry, the mine’s lawyers argued that there were no legal grounds to refuse the mine. But while the law is ambiguous, the science is crystal clear: opening the mine would worsen climate change.</p>
<p>Whether Gove approves the mine or not, we have learned lessons from the Cumbria mine saga. There is an urgent need for clear legislation on fossil fuel extraction, linked to carbon targets – not just coal, but oil and gas as well. Local areas, too, need to be given responsibility to meet climate goals, and the powers and resources to develop local strategies that combine carbon reduction with economic renewal. The <a href="https://greeninvestmentplancumbria.net/">potential for green jobs in Cumbria</a> is immense, yet we have been locked in argument over the mine, rather than uniting to build the prosperous, low-carbon future that the area deserves.</p>
<p><em>Listen to more about Cumbria’s proposed new coal mine, including an interview with Becky Willis, on our <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fossil-fuel-era-must-end-so-what-happens-to-the-communities-it-built-climate-fight-podcast-part-3-170043">Climate Fight podcast series</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Willis receives funding from UK Research and Innovation. She is affiliated with the New Economics Foundation and Green Alliance. </span></em></p>
After years of complex legal processes and misinformation, the mine’s fate hangs in the balance.
Rebecca Willis, Professor in Energy and Climate Governance, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154955
2021-02-09T18:04:50Z
2021-02-09T18:04:50Z
Cumbria coal mine could usher in a net-zero-compliant fossil fuel industry – or prove it was always a fantasy
<p>West Cumbria suffered a “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6616952/Cumbria-floods-once-in-a-thousand-years-deluge-swamps-defences.html">once-in-a-thousand-year</a>” flood in 2009. And then again in 2015. And 2019. No, it’s not that meteorologists can’t count. Climate change is <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa9663">increasing the risk</a> of precisely the kind of intense downpours that triggered these floods, so that once-freak weather events now happen far more regularly.</p>
<p>West Cumbria and climate change are in the headlines again, but for a different reason: the local council’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-50274212">approval of the Woodhouse Colliery</a>, the first deep coal mine to open in the UK for over 30 years, which it’s now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/county-council-to-reconsider-cumbria-coal-mine-application">reconsidering</a> “in light of new information on proposed greenhouse gas targets for the 2030s”. Scientists, climate policy experts and campaigners had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/05/experts-pile-pressure-on-boris-johnson-over-shocking-new-coalmine">argued the mine</a> was inconsistent with the government’s own aim to reach <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-a-carbon-neutral-uk-the-next-five-years-are-critical-heres-what-must-happen-151708">net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050</a>. </p>
<p>But there could be a way to transform this potential embarrassment during the run-up to the Cop26 climate conference, into a flagship project for the world’s net zero future.</p>
<h2>Woodhouse Colliery</h2>
<p>Cumbria’s Woodhouse Colliery would produce coking coal, which fuels the blast furnaces in steelworks. Unlike thermal coal, which is used to generate electricity but is <a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-electricity-since-2010-wind-surges-to-second-place-coal-collapses-and-fossil-fuel-use-nearly-halves-129346">struggling to compete</a> with renewable energy, coal-based steel-making is still significantly cheaper than <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/524c6dbc-ea7a-11e9-a240-3b065ef5fc55">alternatives such as hydrogen</a>. It may still make sense to use coking coal in blast furnaces in a world with net zero greenhouse gas emissions – provided, of course, they are fitted with robust <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06886-8">carbon dioxide capture and storage</a> technology, and any leakage is recaptured from the atmosphere.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Digitally rendered curved black buildings amid green fields." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383253/original/file-20210209-17-kig492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383253/original/file-20210209-17-kig492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383253/original/file-20210209-17-kig492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383253/original/file-20210209-17-kig492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383253/original/file-20210209-17-kig492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383253/original/file-20210209-17-kig492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383253/original/file-20210209-17-kig492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artist’s impression of the Woodhouse Colliery near Whitehaven.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.westcumbriamining.com/what-is-the-plan/will-mine-look-like/">West Cumbria Mining</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>West Cumbria Mining (WCM), the mine operator, <a href="https://www.westcumbriamining.com/wp-content/uploads/Part-8.-Statement-of-Response-to-Green-Alliance-Report.pdf">argues</a> that coking coal will be used somewhere in the world for the foreseeable future, so if it nobly decides to leave its carbon in the ground, the planet won’t really benefit. But by selling coal for conventional blast furnaces, the company would be responsible for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/15/new-cumbria-coalmine-incompatible-with-climate-crisis-goals">250-odd million tonnes of carbon dioxide</a> over the next 30 years.</p>
<p>If such a mine were to go ahead, there’s an opportunity to show the world what a net-zero-compliant fossil fuel industry could look like with a simple provision in its final planning approval. WCM has already agreed to dispose of mine waste <a href="https://www.westcumbriamining.com/what-is-the-plan/how-will-waste-be-treated/">underground</a>. Why not simply add that, by 2050, every tonne of carbon dioxide generated by mining and burning the coal they sell must be disposed of as well, safely and permanently?</p>
<h2>Net-zero-compliant coal?</h2>
<p>WCM might shrug and agree, noting that their operating license only runs to 2049 anyway. But promising to close down in 2049 doesn’t make a coal mine consistent with a net zero world in 2050 if the plan is to continue selling fossil fuels right up to the last minute. Achieving net zero emissions by 2050 means starting the transition now. To limit global warming to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0317-4">1.5°C</a> global emissions must start to fall immediately, and 10% of the carbon dioxide generated from the continued use of fossil fuels must be injected back into the Earth’s crust by 2030, with 50% injected by 2040 and 100% <a href="https://carbontakeback.org/about/">by 2050</a>.</p>
<p>Another option is storing the carbon in Cumbria’s peatlands or native forests. Restoring and protecting these natural carbon sinks is important for lots of reasons, including <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15513">supporting biodiversity, alleviating flooding</a> and creating <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308597X12001182">associated jobs</a>. It would also be much cheaper per tonne than injecting carbon dioxide below ground. But restoring and sustainably managing all the UK’s peatlands would take up <a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/sixth-carbon-budget/">only 60%</a> of the carbon dioxide released by the Woodhouse Colliery’s coal by 2050. Climate change could turn these ecosystems into sources of emissions too, as soils warm and wildfires <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/">become more frequent</a>. So in the long term, the bulk of remaining emissions will need to go underground.</p>
<p>WCM could deliver this by working with its customers, such as the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe, to capture the carbon dioxide produced by their blast furnaces and dispose of it under the North Sea through <a href="https://www.zerocarbonhumber.co.uk/">the Zero Carbon Humber project</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mudflat with a large industrial complex in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383257/original/file-20210209-23-lfjqrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383257/original/file-20210209-23-lfjqrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383257/original/file-20210209-23-lfjqrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383257/original/file-20210209-23-lfjqrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383257/original/file-20210209-23-lfjqrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383257/original/file-20210209-23-lfjqrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383257/original/file-20210209-23-lfjqrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Scunthorpe Steelworks could lead the effort to decarbonise heavy industry in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/scunthorpe-lincolnshire-england-september-16-2019-1579308526">Orlando Alberghi/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Disposing of a small percentage of total emissions would only add a few pounds to the cost of a tonne of coking coal at first, but as this percentage rises, WCM would need the government on their side, insisting that if Britain is to sell net-zero-compliant coking coal, then the rest of the world should do the same. And as WCM runs out of UK-based steel mills on which to fit carbon capture technology, they could shift to capturing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and pumping it under Morecambe Bay, one of the UK’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carbon-capture-readiness-co2-storage-site-morecambe-south-field-irish-sea">best prospective storage sites</a>. And so a new product, net-zero-compliant steel, and a new industry, is born.</p>
<p>WCM’s backers, Australia-based EMR Capital, might baulk at the suggestion they should take responsibility for the emissions generated by the products they sell. Which would reveal what the coal industry really thinks about its future in a net zero world. Or they might agree to go ahead anyway, creating many more than <a href="https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/11/05/green-light-for-new-coal-mine-in-cumbria/">500 jobs</a> in the north of England, and demonstrating <a href="https://go.ted.com/mylesallen">a long-term business model</a> for both the fossil fuel industry and all the investments being made in carbon capture and nature-based solutions.</p>
<p>We initially thought that trying to calculate what it would take to make the Woodhouse Colliery consistent with Britain’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 would show the whole plan isn’t viable. But looking at the numbers, we’re not so sure. If EMR Capital does pull out, there are vast pools of capital still invested in the fossil fuel industry, held by investment funds claiming to be committed to net zero by 2050 but unsure how to square the circle. Time for Cumbria to call in some chips.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Myles Allen receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council and the European Commission. </span></em></p>
Woodhouse Colliery would be the UK’s first new deep coal mine in three decades.
Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science, Director of Oxford Net Zero, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/27570
2014-06-04T05:33:41Z
2014-06-04T05:33:41Z
Is spying on anti-coal activists just the tip of the iceberg?
<p>The <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/undercover-spies-hired-to-infiltrate-anticoal-campaign-20140601-39ci6.html">infiltration of anti-coal protests in New South Wales</a> by spies employed by a private security company is unlikely to be a one-off event. More likely, the revelations of spying on the Maules Creek and Boggabri activists is a rare ray of light into a dark world of surveillance of conservation groups. </p>
<p>Official anxiety about climate change activism has been on the rise for a decade, expressed partly in the strengthening of state and federal laws against demonstrations at coal-fired power plants.</p>
<p>Former Labor federal energy minister Martin Ferguson used to speak bluntly about the need to take stronger measures against anti-coal activism. In 2009 he <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/asio-eyes-green-groups-20120411-1wsba.html">asked the attorney-general to use the federal police to gather intelligence on activists</a>. In 2012, the then attorney-general Nicola Roxon effectively admitted that ASIO and the federal police were spying on environmentalists, although her office insisted that this activity was limited to <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/asio-eyes-green-groups-20120411-1wsba.html">potentially violent protests</a>.</p>
<p>We can expect the present government to show little restraint in the use of covert activities against climate protesters, including infiltration and disruption. </p>
<p>In his <a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2014-05-28/address-minerals-week-2014-annual-minerals-industry-parliamentary-dinner-canberra-0">post-budget speech to captains of the mining industry</a>, Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared that exporting coal to the world is Australia’s “destiny”, and that nothing would damage our future more than leaving coal in the ground. </p>
<p>While the prime minister was bewailing attempts to “demonise the coal industry”, the mining industry has <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/activists-must-lump-it-populace-has-spoken/story-e6frgd0x-1226862676717">made it clear</a> that the gloves are off. Both industry and government want to curtail the right to protest, effectively to limit it to petitions and letters to the editor. The criminalisation of protest and intimidation of protesters represents an attack on the democratic space.</p>
<h2>What else is going on?</h2>
<p>In addition to the ham-fisted private spying on Boggabri and Maules Creek activists, undercover operations and intelligence monitoring is almost certainly being undertaken by Australia’s official intelligence services, although it ought to be more difficult for the protesters to expose spies sent by ASIO or the federal police. </p>
<p>ASIO, Australia’s premier domestic spy agency, has had its resources <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/spooked-by-the-expansion-of-asio-20120512-1yjhu.html">expanded enormously over the past decade</a>. Its surveillance and interrogation powers have also been extended, to the point where in the view of some legal experts, such as University of New South Wales professor George Williams, they approach those of a police state.</p>
<p>Savvy campaigners now assume that their communications are being routinely monitored. Greenpeace activists, for example, are in the habit of turning off their mobile phones when discussing campaigns. They leave them in another room under a pile of magazines, aware that they can be turned on remotely and used as listening devices. The video and audio facilities of their computers can also be used for snooping by outside forces. Putting masking tape over webcams is now a standard precaution.</p>
<h2>US-style spying</h2>
<p>Corporate espionage against non-profit organisations – including computer hacking, infiltration and “dumpster-diving” – is entrenched in the United States. There, as here, private spies talk to government spies. Security companies are typically staffed by former members of military intelligence or federal security agencies, and their contacts are their most valuable asset. Three of those allegedly linked to the Maules Creek and Boggabri covert operations have previously worked for military or police agencies.</p>
<p>We don’t know how deeply linked Australia’s network of private security consultants is to spy agencies and corporations, or the extent to which these different groups are sharing information about environmental activists.</p>
<p>It is difficult to know whether Australian spy agencies are engaged in the kind of sustained infiltration of environmental organisation that has been uncovered in Britain. There, police operatives have been posing as environmental activists for years – their cover was so deep that eight women took <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/dec/16/lovers-undercover-officers-sue-police?guni=Article:in%20body%20link">legal action</a> because they had sexual and emotional relationships with men who were later exposed as spies. </p>
<p>They say they were used “physically and emotionally” by these men to gather intelligence. One undercover policeman, Mark Kennedy, is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans/2014/may/30/undercover-police-and-policing-peter-francis">alleged to have had intimate relationships with three activists</a>. The women say they feel violated.</p>
<p>In the United States, government agencies, private contractors and big corporations have been <a href="http://www.corporatepolicy.org/spookybusiness.pdf">exchanging information</a> on activists with a view to upsetting their plans and tarnishing the reputations of those involved. </p>
<p>And it has been revealed that the <a href="http://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/index-eng.html">Communications Security Establishment Canada</a> – which, like ASIO, is a member of the “Five Eyes” program of English-speaking intelligence services – <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/canada-spies-on-it-own-ctizens/5359271">works closely with Canadian corporations</a>. It is entirely possible that the Maules Creek-Boggabri episode is just the tip of the iceberg in Australia. </p>
<p>Corporate and government spying on groups who campaign on issues ranging from climate change and animal rights to toxic chemicals and consumer protection is an invasion of their privacy and an attack on civil society. A democracy without the opportunity for vigorous, non-violent protest is no democracy at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author is a member of the Australian Greens.</span></em></p>
The infiltration of anti-coal protests in New South Wales by spies employed by a private security company is unlikely to be a one-off event. More likely, the revelations of spying on the Maules Creek and…
Clive Hamilton, Vice Chancellor's Chair, Centre For Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics (CAPPE), Charles Sturt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/15991
2013-07-19T04:32:45Z
2013-07-19T04:32:45Z
Coal in court: Whitehaven, climate change and civil disobedience
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27723/original/36jkd3nk-1374194704.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-coal activists are ramping up civil disobedience: where will the law draw the line?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Tighe</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The future of Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek mine has become a legal issue. The mine’s approval is being <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/maules-creek-challenged-over-dodgy-process-20130718-2q7bf.html">challenged in Federal Court</a>; the company’s representatives <a href="http://www.whitehavencoal.com.au/assets/news/ministerial-approval-of-maules-creek-project-challenged.pdf">say</a> if the approval is overturned, they will ask the new Minister for the Environment to “cure the error … and grant a new approval”. </p>
<p>And next Tuesday the “Whitehaven hoaxer”, Jonathan Moylan, will appear before Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court to hear whether his actions to draw attention to the mine were unlawful.</p>
<p>Of late, there has been a series of battles over climate change, culture-jamming and civil disobedience. The <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-fossil-fuel-resistance-20130411">Fossil Fuel Resistance</a> has increasingly used tactics and strategies such as hoaxes, impersonation, and identity correction. The courts have been forced to tackle complex legal questions involving civil disobedience and its place in the politics of climate change.</p>
<h2>The Whitehaven coal hoax</h2>
<p>In 2013, there has been much controversy over <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/potential-jailing-not-as-scary-as-threat-of-maules-creek-mine-20130123-2d78s.html">the Whitehaven Coal Hoax</a>.</p>
<p>Jonathan Moylan sent out a fake press release, which announced the ANZ bank had cancelled its A$1.2 billion financial loan facility for the Whitehaven Coal mine in New South Wales on ethical grounds. This announcement was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3682970.htm">reported in the media</a>, before it was identified as a hoax. The share price of Whitehaven Coal dropped with <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/hoax-press-release-sparks-whitehaven-plunge-20130107-2cc47.html">the news</a>.</p>
<p>There has been much <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-whitehaven-hoax-ratbag-act-or-legitimate-protest-11604">debate</a> about the nature of the hoax. Was it an act of <a href="https://theconversation.com/anz-imposter-takes-up-new-climate-tactic-11482">civil disobedience</a>? A spoof? Culture-jamming? Ratbag mischief? Misleading and deceptive conduct? Or <a href="https://theconversation.com/public-nuisance-or-fraud-whitehaven-hoax-puts-market-creditability-at-risk-11544">corporate fraud</a>?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/asic-to-look-into-whitehaven-hoax-20130107-2cchb.html">Jonathan Moylan</a> commented that the action was a spoof: “We think it is a bit like the Chaser getting into APEC, or the Yes Men announcing that Union Carbide had shut down.”</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">SBS interview with Jonathan Moylan.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In July 2013, the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/charge-laid-after-whitehaven-hoax-email-20130702-2p9x6.html">Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC)</a> charged Moylan with the offence of breaching section 1041E of the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca2001172/s1041e.html">Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)</a> through the making of false or misleading statements. He faces a maximum fine of A$495,000 and imprisonment for up to ten years. </p>
<p>Such a decision was welcomed by those outraged, misled, or embarrassed by the Whitehaven Coal Hoax. Defenders of Moylan, like Bernard Keane, have accused ASIC of <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/07/05/double-standards-as-gutless-asic-targets-the-little-guy/">“double standards”</a>. The much awaited case will highlight how corporations law will deal with civil disobedience by climate activists.</p>
<p>In light of the Australian controversy over the ANZ Whitehaven hoax, it is worthwhile considering international debates over identity correction, climate activism, and culture-jamming.</p>
<h2>The Yes Men, impersonation, and identity correction</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://theyesmen.org/">Yes Men</a> are culture jamming activists based in the United States. The Yes Men are <a href="http://beautifultrouble.org/">particularly fond</a> of the tactic of “identity correction” – impersonating representatives of companies, governments, and international institutions to criticise the absurdity of their discourse.</p>
<p>In October 2009, The Yes Men staged a press conference, pretending to be the United States Chamber of Commerce. The group announced the Chamber had decided to support substantive legislative action on climate change. The Yes Men also <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/10/yes-men-punk-chamber">published a press release</a>, and established a website.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Yes Men v. The United States Chamber of Commerce</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In response, <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/chamber-commerce-v-servin">the United States Chamber</a> sought “redress for Defendants’ fraudulent acts and misappropriation of its valuable intellectual property.” The Chamber complained: “The acts are nothing less than commercial identity theft masquerading as social activism … such conduct is destructive of public discourse, and cannot be tolerated under the law.” </p>
<p>The Chamber alleged that the Yes Men had engaged in copyright infringement, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, unfair competition, false advertising, and cyber-squatting, amongst other things.</p>
<p>Calling for the case to be dismissed, the defence commented that “The Chamber took a controversial position on a vital political matter, climate change” and the “Defendants engaged in a parody to criticise that position … Trademark rights do not encompass the right to silence criticism.”</p>
<p>In June 2013, four years after the complaint, the Chamber <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/chamber-commerce-abandon-spurious-trademark-lawsuit-against-yes-men">withdrew the action against The Yes Men</a>.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Yes Men win Legal Battle with US Chamber of Commerce.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The conflict between The Yes Men and the United States Chamber raises a number of policy concerns about the legal status of culture-jamming.</p>
<p>This highlights the dangers of authoritarian efforts to demand identity registration, and moves to outlaw impersonation. The Yes Men were bemused by the action in Australia against Jonathan Moylan.</p>
<h2>Bidder 70</h2>
<p>The victory of The Yes Men could be contrasted with the case of Tim DeChristopher. DeChristopher - known as Bidder 70 - protested a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction by successfully bidding on 14 parcels of land, without any intention of paying for the purchases.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.peacefuluprising.org/tims-official-statement-at-his-sentencing-hearing-20110726">DeChristopher</a> argued: “I want you to join me in valuing this country’s rich history of nonviolent civil disobedience.”</p>
<p>DeChristopher was convicted of an indictment; and sentenced for two years. On appeal, the judge <a href="http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/11/11-4151.pdf">noted</a> that “mixed in with his argument about selective prosecution, Defendant raises the spectre of retaliatory sentencing”. The judge observed that the “Defendant’s statements that he would ‘continue to fight’ and his view that it was ‘fine to break the law’ were highly relevant to these sentencing factors”. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/tim-dechristopher-release_n_3133026.html">climate activist was released from Federal Prison</a> after 21 months of imprisonment.</p>
<p>DeChristopher is currently the subject of a documentary film called Bidder 70. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/27vl_VbehIs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Bidder 70.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In light of these United States counterpoints, the Whitehaven Coal Hoax will be a fascinating test case. Will the dispute turn out like the battle between the United States Chamber of Commerce and The Yes Men? Or will Jonathan Moylan face imprisonment like <a href="http://www.bidder70.org/">Timothy DeChristopher</a>?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/15991/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Matthew Rimmer is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, working on Intellectual Property and Climate Change. He is an associate professor at the ANU College of Law, and an associate director of the Australian Centre for Intellectual Property. Matthew Rimmer is currently an Australian Research Council Future Fellow working on a project entitled "Intellectual Property and Climate Change: Inventing Clean Technologes".</span></em></p>
The future of Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek mine has become a legal issue. The mine’s approval is being challenged in Federal Court; the company’s representatives say if the approval is overturned, they…
Matthew Rimmer, ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor in Intellectual Property, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/11571
2013-01-11T05:36:10Z
2013-01-11T05:36:10Z
Whitehaven hoax was an unethical act that was harmful to all
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/19161/original/vpjxm7jk-1357881238.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Greens leader Bob Brown has endorsed Jonathan Moylan's hoax against Whitehaven Coal; but Moylan's actions are unethical and corrupt the integrity of our systems.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Bob Brown’s <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/its-coalminers-not-moylan-who-are-costing-us-the-earth-20130110-2cix6.html">opinion piece</a> for Fairfax today seems to endorse Jonathan Moylan’s “activism” as a form of civil disobedience. </p>
<p>The thoughts echo the sentiments expressed earlier in the week by his former colleague and Greens leader, Christine Milne who also endorsed Moylan’s actions as being “part of a long and proud history of civil disobedience, potentially breaking the law, to highlight something wrong”.</p>
<p>Milne is of course right: Moylan has highlighted “something wrong”. But whether or not he broke any law, he certainly did something that is ethically wrong for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>First, Moylan engaged in identity theft by creating a false identity for ANZ Bank and then falsely impersonating one of the ANZ employees. Stealing someone else’s identity for whatever misguided reason for whatever ends is ethically wrong. One can reasonably presume that neither Ms Milne nor Mr Brown would appreciate having their own virtual identities stolen and misused to embarrass them or damage their personal or political reputations, for that would also be ethically wrong.</p>
<p>Secondly, Moylan engaged in information corruption. He purposely used false information (disinformation) to corrupt the integrity of the digital informational environment. This is the environment whose reliability and trustworthiness we all rely on to conduct our legitimate informational transactions, for travel, education, sport, play, politics, health, finance, socialising, shopping and the whole web of our activities as citizens of a modern democratic capitalist state.</p>
<p>That Moylan, a self-described environmentalist, chose to corrupt that environment is ironic and paradoxical. For the informational environment, our shared infosphere is just as valuable and indispensable as our natural environment. </p>
<p>It is equally worthy of protection from misinformation pollution and vandalism by so called “activists” willing to undermine its integrity in order to advance their own ideologies whether the rest of society agree with them or not. Along with many other people I am personally sympathetic to Moylan’s concerns about the impact of greenhouse gases on the natural environment. </p>
<p>However, the use of unethical and nefarious means destructive to the integrity of our informational environment to promote concerns about the natural environment is not justified. </p>
<p>Instead we should welcome and engage in open, transparent and rational debate and action on how to tackle this complex issue, rather than engage in informational disinformation and vandalism, that does no one any good. Moylan’s action is ultimately self-defeating and as such not only ill-conceived and irrational, but also because of its destructiveness to our informational environment, unethical and grossly irresponsible.</p>
<p>In his article, Bob Brown seeks to indirectly justify Moylan’s hoax through the use of an argument from analogy. He refers to a number of historical and venerable examples of civil disobedience such as Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther and Jesus Christ. </p>
<p>No doubt all good examples of right action inspired and guided by right thinking. The problem with arguments from analogy, however, they only work when the analogy they draw on is accurate and apt. But that is not so in the case of Moylan. </p>
<p>For the venerable fathers of civil disobedience listed by Brown only engaged in just and ethical acts that were not intentionally harmful to others or the common good which they sought to promote. If their acts were harmful at all they were primarily harmful to themselves. Moylan’s actions by contrast are harmful to all of us who rely on the integrity and trustworthiness of the informational environment. We are not only biological beings but also and increasingly so, informational beings. When the informational environment is harmed we are also harmed.</p>
<p>Brown concludes his article with the foreboding words that “in Australia in 2013, while Whitehaven’s mine will help cost us the Earth, it is Moylan’s actions which have excited outrage and may cost him his freedom”. Well the Earth in Australia 2013 and for the foreseeable future also comprises the informational environment on which our civilisation depends, for better or worse, for its survival and continuous evolution and advancement. </p>
<p>In terms of our collective wellbeing the infosphere is no less important and precious to us than the natural environment. Polluting that environment with false information corrupts and undermines its integrity and undermines public trust in its reliability. As such, </p>
<p>Moylan’s act was an act of uncivil disobedience that merits not the praise one expects at a nationalist socialist rally by unreflective and fanatical storm-trooping devotees but like all unethical acts that undermine the public good for misplaced self-serving ideologies, public condemnation and sanction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Spence received funding from the ARC to conduct research on police ethics in 2001. He is Senior Research Fellow of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, and Research Fellow of the 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology, The Hague, Netherlands. </span></em></p>
Bob Brown’s opinion piece for Fairfax today seems to endorse Jonathan Moylan’s “activism” as a form of civil disobedience. The thoughts echo the sentiments expressed earlier in the week by his former colleague…
Edward Spence, Senior Research Fellow at the ARC Special Research Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/11537
2013-01-11T02:47:17Z
2013-01-11T02:47:17Z
Whitehaven hoax shows NSW planning system can’t cope with community concern
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/19133/original/q6ybfv9t-1357858731.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When the community feels locked out of the environmental approvals process, they look for other avenues.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kate Ausburn</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week’s <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/dealjournalaustralia/2013/01/07/whitehaven-stung-by-anti-coal-groups-email-hoax/">hoax email from an anti-coal activist</a>, Jonathan Moylan, highlights an emerging issue in land-use conflicts both in Australia and internationally. Activists, and in many instances, communities, feel increasingly compelled to engage in <a href="https://theconversation.com/anz-imposter-takes-up-new-climate-tactic-11482">extreme actions</a> to have their voices heard. </p>
<p>Within a regulatory regime that prioritises development interests, and provides limited opportunity for independent arbitration of development decisions, this is hardly surprising.</p>
<p>The mining boom has created unprecedented land use conflicts, particularly in rural and regional Australia. Agricultural communities and environmentalists are engaged in disputes with mining and gas companies over the use and management of natural resources. In many cases, these conflicts have eluded resolution. </p>
<p>The Maules Creek mine, near Narrabri in the north-west of New South Wales (and the subject of the aforementioned hoax email), is one such conflict. The proposed 2,000 hectare greenfield open-cut coal mine project sought to clear more than 1,300 hectares of the Leard State Forest. The forest is a high conservation wildlife habitat, and is home to such threatened species as the <a href="http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Tyto-novaehollandiae">Masked Owl</a>, as well as 1,500 hectares of critically endangered Box Gum woodland (some 700 hectares of which would be cleared for the proposed mine project). </p>
<p>Leard State Forest was previously mapped in the NSW Government’s draft Strategic Regional Land Use Plan as high conservation value land to be protected from further biodiversity loss. But this was not reflected in the final plan. </p>
<p>As the constitution does not list minerals as an area of federal government jurisdiction, the states and territories <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-quite-the-castle-why-miners-have-a-right-to-whats-under-your-land-4176">regulate mine development consent</a>. In New South Wales, mining leases are granted under the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ma199281/">Mining Act 1992</a>, and development consent for mining activities is granted under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (<a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/epaaa1979389/">EP&A Act</a>). </p>
<p>Under the Mining Act, any person can lodge an objection to a mining lease. However, this entitlement is lost where development consent is required under the EP&A Act and objectors have already had the opportunity to raise concerns during the development application process. Most mining activities are considered large-scale, state-significant developments for which development consent is required. So public opposition to mine development is usually raised under the EP&A Act.</p>
<p>Following public notice of a development application, there is an exhibition period in which any person may lodge a written objection to the project. It is critical that objectors raise their concerns during this time, as rights to appeal decisions to the Land and Environment Court are only available to those with objector “status”.</p>
<p>The Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) usually determines more contentious applications from private developers. The EP&A Act requires that the decision maker take into account environmental and social impacts of the development, any public submissions, and the public interest.</p>
<p>The public has different appeal rights against determinations than development applicants have. Objectors can only seek to have the decision reconsidered if they have made a written submission during the public exhibition period. They have 28 days in which to lodge their appeal. However, where the PAC conducts a review of an application that includes a public hearing, this avenue of appeal is extinguished. </p>
<p>Under request from the minister, the PAC conducted a review of the Maules Creek mine project, including a public hearing in November 2011. Objectors raised many concerns about the environmental impacts of the project, including the clearing of significant endangered woodland and resulting biodiversity losses. The PAC acknowledged these in their final decision, but determined that the project could nonetheless proceed with certain conditions in place to <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tree-for-a-tree-can-biodiversity-offsets-balance-destruction-and-restoration-3682">offset biodiversity loss</a>. </p>
<p>Adding insult to injury for already angered community and environmental groups was a ministerial request that the PAC hold a public hearing as a part of their review that closed off any opportunity to lodge a merits appeal with the Land and Environment Court. Some felt that the right to appeal to the independent umpire was deliberately circumvented. </p>
<p>In their deliberations, PAC were careful to note the concerns raised by community and environmental groups. But ultimately the project was approved with conditions many feel are inadequate to protect both environmental and community welfare. With no right to appeal the decision, other avenues to voice discontent with the determination have been sought. </p>
<p>Despite recent reforms, the planning regime in New South Wales still attracts much criticism. </p>
<p>It is accused of being a top-down framework that facilitates development and delivers royalties to government at the expense of environmental and social concerns. The Environmental Defender’s Office has <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edo.org.au%2Fedonsw%2Fsite%2Fpdf%2Fpubs%2F110628mining_law_discussion_paper.pdf&ei=9w7vUIidO-yOmQWOoIHIDg&usg=AFQjCNHMgS9nEjLCTeKkf57Y7qnuZRA_9g&sig2=0VX__6ByKxQF1SgmihjoLg&bvm=bv.1357700187,d.dGY">previously argued</a> that the regulatory framework for mining must enshrine guaranteed rights of community consultation through increased legislative requirements for public input, and greater access to merits appeals and judicial review. </p>
<p>Such reforms would give members of the public more ability to raise their concerns over development projects. Reforms would arguably reduce the need to resort to civil disobedience (or worse) to make concerns heard.</p>
<p>The regulatory framework for mining development fails to meet the expectations of the public, increasingly driving some to take alternative direct actions. This week’s hoax email case demonstrates that when we rely on legal arrangements that simplistically consider the role of communities and the nature of land use conflict, we create the potential for adverse consequences. We need to think more creatively about how communities and resource users resolve disputes, as land use demands will only increase in intensity and complexity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11537/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Kennedy receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
This week’s hoax email from an anti-coal activist, Jonathan Moylan, highlights an emerging issue in land-use conflicts both in Australia and internationally. Activists, and in many instances, communities…
Amanda Kennedy, Deputy Director, Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law, University of New England
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/11544
2013-01-10T05:09:24Z
2013-01-10T05:09:24Z
Public nuisance - or fraud? Whitehaven hoax puts market creditability at risk
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/19118/original/h4fn9sgf-1357793360.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-coal activists have targeted Whitehaven before over its development in Maules Creek; but Jonathan Moylan’s recent actions could be interpreted as fraud, not simply civil disobedience.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>It has has been suggested a hoax by anti-coal activist Jonathan Moylan wiping million of dollars from Whitehaven Coal’s share price was an act of “civil disobedience”, akin to chaining a person to a tree, a public protest or even a prank call on the radio.</p>
<p>Activists across all campaigns have traditionally used a variety of techniques to gain the maximum amount of publicity.</p>
<p>From public statements made by Mr Moylan, it is clear he carefully considered what he was doing prior to impersonating the bank’s head of corporate sustainability and forging the ANZ logo to create the fake media release. </p>
<p>The release, which incorrectly claimed the bank had withdrawn a $1.2 billion loan due to environmental concerns over Whitehaven’s Maules Creek development, caused the shareprice to dive sharply, before recovering following statements from both Whitehaven and ANZ. </p>
<p>Unfortunately for Mr Moylan, the legislation that deals with corporate fraud is drafted in a way that imposes a high penalty on false or misleading statements made in respect of traded securities on the Australian Securities Exchange.</p>
<p>Section 1041E of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) specifically deals with this type of situation and has a maximum criminal penalty of 10 years imprisonment and up to $495,000.</p>
<p>The difference between a public nuisance and civil disobedience is the impact on the general community. A protest normally provides publicity for a cause and brings the matter to the general public’s attention, but causes little harm to the community. </p>
<p>A fraud - and in particular one that impacts on the share market - has huge consequences. Financial services in Australia is the single biggest industry in the economy (over 10% of GDP) and the confidence in the ASX and other securities markets is critical. Frauds and false information impact on the whole markets creditability and investors are less likely to invest, particularly international investors.</p>
<p>Markets operate on a concept of efficient market hypotheses; that is, all available public information is calculated into the current share price. When insider trading occurs, it is a distortion of timing of good or bad news that would materially impact the share price. Market manipulation is when false information distorts the share price and this undermines the whole market.</p>
<p>Misleading media releases have been subject to the High Court of Australia’s review in 2012 with the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2012/17.html">James Hardie litigation</a> (where the directors were held to be in breach of the law) and <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2012/39.html">Fortescue Metals Group</a> (where there was no breach as the CEO honestly and reasonably believed the information was true). These were civil penalty actions as there was no suggestion of fraud or dishonesty by the companies in question.</p>
<p>Normally false information (fraudulent or falsely misleading under s 1014E) as allegedly occurred in the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2012/49.html">Adult.com case</a> heard by the High Court in November 2012, indicated an intention for parties to profit from the false information.</p>
<p>There is no suggestion Mr Moylan intended to profit from the false statement, but when the shares dropped by 8.8% to $3.21, $314 million was wiped from shareholder funds. Individual small shareholders would have unfairly lost money by the fraud.</p>
<p>The corporate regulator, Australian Securities and Investment Commission, is investigating and if there is sufficient evidence, it should bring a criminal prosecution. </p>
<p>The fact that this is the third such fraud in the last six months, the others being a false takeovers of David Jones and MacMahon Holdings, could really begin to undermine the confidence in the ASX.</p>
<p>One final consideration to redress the small shareholders that suffered a loss is for the ASX to use its powers to cancel the transactions. These provisions are intended for when a mistake occurs, but have been used in fraudulent circumstances before, such as with <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VicRp/1984/65.html">Magnet Group in 1984</a> on the old Perth Stock Exchange, when a forged letter delivered to the Exchange suggesting an imminent takeover bid caused its shares to skyrocket. </p>
<p>There have been some knee-jerk reactions to call for more laws and regulations to cover such situations. I would argue strongly that the existing Corporations Act and other Crimes Acts deal with all these issues adequately and it is up to the regulators to investigate and enforce if necessary.</p>
<p>It is important that activists should use every method and in particular the power of the media and social networking to get the relevant message out to the public or target audience, but to stay within the boundaries of the law. Having any criminal conviction against your name does not help the environment nor your personal standing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Adams receives funding from the ARC, but not linked to this article.</span></em></p>
It has has been suggested a hoax by anti-coal activist Jonathan Moylan wiping million of dollars from Whitehaven Coal’s share price was an act of “civil disobedience”, akin to chaining a person to a tree…
Michael Adams, Dean, School of Law, Western Sydney University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.