On December 8, thousands across Australia, took to streets, protesting against the planned coal mine by Indian mining firm Adani in Queensland. The protests follow last week’s demonstration by at least 15,000 school students against the government’s inaction against climate change.
Last month, Adani announced that it would go ahead with the construction of the controversial coal mine. However, this project will be drastically scaled down from the earlier plans.
“Stop Adani”
Protestors marched and staged demonstrations in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Cairns after Adani said that the work on the Carmichael coal mine would begin imminently, as reported by The Economic Times. The protesters marched with placards saying “Stop Adani”, “There is no Planet B”, “Time for a COALonoscopy” and “I bet the dinosaurs thought they had time too”.
Over a thousand people are currently outside Adani’s HQ in Brisbane. It’s time that we #StopAdani #Fight4Future pic.twitter.com/xPcceP2l3c
— Robert Hume (@robertihume) December 7, 2018
About 5,000 people had marched in Melbourne alone, as per the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. In Brisbane, hundreds of protestors gathered outside Adani’s headquarters to voice their opposition to the project.
As per The Guardian, the proposed project was earlier planned to be 60 million tonnes a year, $16.5 billion mega-mine and now it has been downsized to $2 million worth project producing 10-15 million tonnes a year. Regarding the protests, Adani Mining said that it realises that “there are varied opinions” about the project, however, it requested everyone to voice their opinions safely and respectfully.
Protesters staged a sit-in at the Parliament House in Canberra to confront Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Children became the strongest voice against climate change
It was the Australian school children’s protest against the government’s inaction regarding climate change which snowballed into what could be best described as a citizen movement.
On November 30, thousands of children walked out of their classrooms to demand action from the federal government on climate change. 15-year-old Swedish student, Greta Thunberg, refused to go to school before the September 9 elections in the country to draw attention to the climate crisis. Thunberg is said to be the inspiration behind the “Strike 4 Climate Action” in Australia.
Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison had earlier urged students to be “less activist” and told them not to take part.
Notably, Australia had pledged to reduce emissions to 26-28% below the 2005 year levels, by 2030. However, a UN report says that since 2017 climate policy of the country, there has been no improvement. The report further said that the levels of emission would remain high against the 2030 target.
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