In yet another passionate defence of coal (in an interview with the Australian newspaper), Tony Abbott has made so many inaccurate and questionable claims it’s hard to know where to start. Here are some of his statements, juxtaposed with facts.

If a vital national project can be endlessly delayed, if the courts can be turned into a means of sabotaging projects which are striving to meet the highest environmental standards, then we have a real problem in this nation … we have to remain a nation that gives people a fair go if they play by the rules.”

The prime minister seems to be suggesting those taking court action are doing something unpatriotic and wrong. In fact, the environmentalists trying to stop the Carmichael mine are playing by the rules – the laws made by parliaments and interpreted by courts.

Abbott warns against courts 'sabotaging' projects such as Carmichael coalmine Read more

“Sabotage” is usually something undertaken by enemy agents, not citizens testing the laws of the land. The Environmental Defenders Office is an organisation representing the views of many loyal Australians. A recent Essential poll found that 50% of Australians believe governments should prioritise support for renewables over the coal industry, including 39% of Liberal voters. Only 6% thought governments should prioritise support for coal. The federal court interprets the law.

In any event, the biggest danger to the Adani mine is its own business case, not environmental legal cases, as my colleague Joshua Robertson explained after the recent court decision. The company’s modelling suggests the project needs a thermal coal price of between US$80 and US$100. The current price is around US$60. The company has axed its entire project management team and has sent staff from potential equity partner Posco back to Korea.

As a country, we must, in principle, favour projects like this.

Actually, our country contains many people deeply concerned about climate change, and our system of government gives them, in principle, a right to have their voices heard and considered.

The Carmichael mine’s environmental impact statement says it will produce more than 200m tonnes of CO2 over the 60-year life of the mine, from gases that escape during the mining process and from emissions created from mining and transporting the coal. But burning the 60m tonnes of coal exported from the mine each year would create 130m tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to about a quarter of Australia’s total annual emissions.

Approval for Adani's Carmichael coalmine overturned by federal court Read more

It will create about 10,000 well-paid jobs in Australia.

Nope, it won’t. Evidence from an economist commissioned by Adani itself – Jerome Fahrer of ACIL Allen – given in the land court earlier this year said: “Over the life of the project it is projected that on average around 1,464 employee years of full-time equivalent direct and indirect jobs will be created.”

Let’s repeat that: 1,464. Not 10,000. Adani has said the higher estimate was based on a broader assessment of the project’s impact.

It will provide for decades to come for 100 million people in India who currently have no power.

This claim is contradicted by well-known saboteurs such as the World Bank, which stopped funding new coal projects three years ago because of the impact of climate change and the health impacts of coal-fired power, and which said coal-fired power was not the answer to “energy poverty” – a phrase used by the fossil fuel industry in a global marketing campaign to try to rebrand coal.

It also appears to have been contradicted by the Indian energy minister, who has unveiled plans for a rapid expansion of domestic coal production, as well as renewables, and said India aims to stop imports of thermal coal within three years.

In April he went further and said the aim was to stop coal imports “within the next year or two”. Indian coal imports declined 11% in July 2015 compared with July 2014.

Undeterred, Abbott followed up in a press conference on Friday, asserting that without the Carmichael coalmine, hundreds of millions of Indians would remain in the dark.

“This coal will power up the lives of 100 million people in India. So this is a very important project, not just for Australia, but for the wider world and if we get to the stage where the rules are such that projects like this can be endlessly frustrated, that’s dangerous for our country and it’s tragic for the wider world.

“So we’ve got to get these projects right, absolutely vital that we get these projects right. But once they are fully complying with high environmental standards, let them go ahead. Let them go ahead for the workers of Australia and for the people of countries like India, who right at the moment have no electricity. Now imagine what it’s like to live in the modern world with no electricity,” he said.

The prime minister has every right to his views about the coalmine and about environmental laws.

He can try to use the mine’s fate as a way to recast the climate debate back to the familiar theme of “bad” (and now apparently unpatriotic) greenies jeopardising “good” Aussie jobs.

But he surely has an obligation to get facts straight. And well-intentioned Australians have a right to disagree without being accused of “sabotage”.