Climate change is the greatest existential crisis we face today. Greenhouse gas emissions are causing increases in global average air and ocean temperatures. Rising global sea levels and changes in atmospheric and ocean circulation and regional weather patterns are influencing seasonal rainfall conditions. As capitalists line their pockets, all life on earth is being driven to extinction. 71% of global emissions are attributed to 100 corporations and with the situation drastically growing, it is clear that the solution does not lie in bourgeois electoral politics. This problem is epitomized by the Adani mine that is being built in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland. A multinational corporation is attempting to build the largest coal mine in Australian history, that will; destroy the ancestral lands, waters and cultures of Indigenous people, allow 500 more coal ships to travel through the Great Barrier Reef every year, risk damaging aquifers of the Great Artesian Basin and add 4.6 billion tonnes of carbon pollution to our atmosphere.

“Threatening the habitat of local sea life such as dolphins and turtles, there would be hundreds more coal ships ploughing through the Reef’s waters every year”

Stopping the Adani mine is incredibly important for the future of the Great Barrier Reef and for those living around the mine. Climate change is causing ocean temperatures to rise, which in turn is leading to more catastrophic weather events and coral bleaching. The mine will also require over a million cubic metres of seafloor to be dredged for a new coal terminal, threatening the habitat of local sea life such as dolphins and turtles. There would be hundreds more coal ships ploughing through the Reef’s waters every year, increasing the risk of accidents.

Not only does the mine impose on the safety of the natural environment in surrounding areas, it is also proposed to be built on the ancestral lands of the Wangan and Jagalingou people. In their own words. if the mine goes ahead, it would tear the heart out of the land. The scale of this mine means it would have devastating impacts on ancestral lands and waters, totemic plants and animals and environmental and cultural heritage. The Wangan and Jagalingou people applied in 2004 for recognition of their native title for an area northwest of Emerald in Central Queensland. This includes the location for which the mine is proposed. The National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) has registered the Wangan and Jagalingou People’s native title claim but the application is still pending. Registration of their native title claim gives the Wangan and Jagalingou people a right to negotiate in relation to government decisions that may affect their native title interests, such as the grant of a mining lease, under the future acts regime of the NTA. On the 8th of April, 2015 a grant for a mining lease was approved by the NNTT for Adani. An elder of the Wangan and Jagalingou People, Adrian Burragubba, appealed this determination to the Federal Court but the application was dismissed. Further litigation into the mining lease was dismissed another two times over the following years.

Adani has a sordid history of environmental vandalism. In 2011, a ship carrying 60000 tonnes of Adani coal sank off the coast of Mumbai which in turn led to devastation of local marine life and tourism. In Mundra, India, Adani illegally cleared 75 hectares of land, resulting in the flooding of a local village and killing of all the local fish, leaving locals who had traditionally relied on fishing and farming to survive with a completely barren landscape. In 2010, Adani’s Australian CEO Jeyakumar Janakaraj oversaw the overall operations at a copper mine in Zambia where the company poisoned the Kafue river which has resulted in the sickness and deaths of many local Zambians. Adani also has a history of crime and corruption.