Fresh back from Paris, on Monday this week, Greg Hunt (again) gave his approval for the expansion of the Abbot Point port. The expansion would be necessary for what would be Australia’s largest coal mine, Adani’s Carmichael mine, to go ahead.  (Prize to anyone who can explain how those two fit together!)

To refresh memories in this complicated process, Minister Hunt’s first approval for the port expansion allowed the dredge spoil to be dumped in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park – that was stymied by legal action by NQCC and ended up with a law banning spoil being dumped anywhere in the Marine Park.

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The Paris agreement

The people marched, leaders and the world’s powerful converged on Paris, and an agreement was reached. Better than past outcomes? Definitely. Sufficient to address the problem? Unfortunately not.

As George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian, ‘… the Paris agreement is full of soft facts: promises that can slip or unravel. Until governments undertake to keep fossil fuels in the ground, they will continue to undermine the agreement they have just made.’