On the day of the final environmental nod from the Queensland Government on the Carmichael mine project, Adani Australia chief Lucas Dow declared construction activity would "steadily increase" in the weeks to come.

The company's management plan for the endangered black-throated finch was approved by DES less than a fortnight after Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declared both she and the community were "fed up" with delays on two outstanding environmental approvals.

The Premier's move to ask her Coordinator-General to oversee the DES approval process for Adani came days after many commentators pointed to the Labor Party's equivocal position on the Carmichael coal mine as the reason for the party's poor showing in the federal election.

Like clockwork, approval of the groundwater management plan followed less than a fortnight after the nod for the black-throated finch plan.

Here's what we know — and still don't know — about the project.

Why is the Adani mine still controversial?

It highlights the political divide over taking action in Australia to mitigate climate change.

Adani shelled out half-a-billion-dollars for the Carmichael Coal tenement in 2010.

It wants to export coal for electricity to Asia, including in the company's home market, India, where it's a power player.

It originally planned to have the mine up and running four years ago.

The project has become a touchstone for an environmental movement trying to stop new thermal coal mines.

This argument says there are enough carbon emissions from existing fossil fuel projects to blow the world's "carbon budget" to keep average temperature rises above 2 degrees Celsius.

The controversial mine has been be scaled back significantly from earlier plans. ( ABC News )

The Carmichael mine, they say, is the thin edge of the wedge.

Adani would blaze a trail for six other mining hopefuls in Queensland's Galilee Basin, which contains enough coal to outstrip Australia's annual carbon emissions if it was all burned.

Project supporters say local benefits — jobs and property booms from mining income — would otherwise go overseas.

Asia will get its coal from somewhere else, they say, so the argument is better it be regional Queensland where, in an economy still reeling from the end of the mining boom, Adani has become a symbol of hope.

And Adani has stared down numerous legal challenges in court, while striving for nine years to get the most-scrutinised coal project in modern Australian history over the line.

Traditional owners of the mine site are bitterly split on the project.

Other concerns include that the mine could potentially drain the nationally important Doongmabulla Springs dry, and deprive the black-throated finch out of habitat critical to its survival.

How big would the mine project be?

Not half as big as Adani first hoped — but still one of the biggest coal mines in Australia.

Adani planned to have the mine up and running four years ago. ( Amy McCosker )

Adani has walked back its vision of a 60-million-tonne-a-year mega-mine to a 10-to-15MT-a-year proposition, with the option of ramping up to 27 MT.

That puts it on par with the country's largest existing thermal coal operations, BHP Billiton's Mount Arthur Mine — 15MT — in NSW and BMA's Blackwater mine in Queensland — 13MT — but which also includes coal for steelmaking.

Adani has also swapped its plan for a 388km rail line linking the mine to its Abbot Point coal port, to a 200km one piggy-backing Aurizon's network.

It put the original project cost at $16.5 billion over its lifetime. It now says the mine component will cost $2 billion.

How many jobs?

Adani used to run advertisements promising the project would generate 10,000 jobs — direct and indirect, at its peak from 2024, according to one form of modelling — and $22 billion in taxes and royalties.

Its economics expert in court in 2015 instead said it would create an extra 1,464 jobs in Australia — 1,206 of them in Queensland — and generate $16.8 billion in taxes and royalties.

While the revised mine plan could be less than a quarter of its original scale, Adani has not publicly put forward a new projection for jobs or tax and royalty streams.

In welcoming the final state approval, Mr Dow said the mine would need about 1,500 employees.

Nationals MP Brigid McKenzie said late last year the project would create 100 ongoing jobs.

It is yet to reach a final deal with the State Government on how its royalty payments might be deferred in the mine's first five years.

Who is funding it?

Adani.

It says it can "self-fund" the smaller project, after previously seeking finance from Asian banks without success, amid lobbying by anti-mining activists.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk killed off its chances of a $1 billion taxpayer-funded loan for its railway in 2017.

The project has become a touchstone for an environmental movement trying to stop new thermal coal mines. ( ABC News: Lara Webster )

What is standing in Adani's way?

Adani still needs the Queensland Government to extinguish the native title claims of the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) people to the mine site.

It can then take up a freehold lease and start digging.

But the Palaszczuk Government has indicated it won't be rushing to make that happen.

It will wait at least until Adani opponents within the W&J exhaust their legal avenue of appeal in the Federal Court.

Traditional owners of the mine site are bitterly split on the project. ( ABC News: Patrick Williams )

After a hearing in May, a decision on whether a crucial land-use agreement with the miner should stand is likely months away.

Adani supporters in the W&J maintain they have the numbers.

The anti-Adani contingent in the W&J, who describe themselves as the last line of resistance to the mine, have flagged taking their fight to the High Court.

It's not clear if the state would wait for that outcome. But most of the critical levers on the Adani project remain in the Palaszczuk Government's hands.

On June 12, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) won a Federal Court appeal, which found the Commonwealth had not properly assessed about 2,000 public submissions on Adani's plans to use river water.

But the ACF conceded that the decision was unlikely to further delay the controversial project given the "green light" from the Queensland Government.