Indian energy giant Adani on Monday achieved a “key milestone” in completing its massive and controversial Carmichael coal mine project in Australia—a project, according to a marine conservation group, “that will super charge climate change and sound the death knell for our Reef.”
The achievement comes thanks to Queensland’s Coordinator-General giving “the latest, and final, secondary approval” for a permanent rail line and a temporary construction camp.
With those in place, the Australian Associated Press reports, “Construction on Australia’s largest coal mine looks set to begin next year.”
The Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Project in Queensland’s Galilee Basin is slated to produce up to 60 million tonnes of coal a year. It would be sent along the rail line to a terminal in Abbot Point, where it would be sent to India to supply power plants. As Reuterswrites Monday, it “has faced years of legal delays and rollercoaster coal prices, amid strident opposition from environmentalists opposed to coal mining and concerned at the impact the mine will have on the Great Barrier Reef.”