Another day, another cheerful anti-coal mob walk their protest from the doors of the Commonwealth Bank HQ to those of Westpac central on Sydney’s Kent Street. Over months this group of enthusiastic youngsters from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition has maintained their coal rage in a weekly vigil outside Westpac’s head office. This routine, lite-touch harassment of the big four banks is part of an extraordinarily successful, hydra-headed campaign that aims to pillory coal in the same way that the cigarette industry was pilloried. And the unavoidable fact that coal simply has to accept, and quickly respond to, is that it is working. So why would the anti-coal be targeting the banks? The most obvious reason is that the banks provide project finance for new coalmines and the infrastructure that supports them. But there is a broader strategy. The banks’ massive retail base and their very obvious urban presence leave them a prime theatre for the savvy carbonistas. As a result the banks are victims of a two-track campaign, one grassroots and relatively benign, the other more ambitious and potentially schismatic. At the retail level groups like Market Forces are trying to convince customers to move their accounts from banking pillars to smaller, more “ethical” options. This is feel-good stuff that hasn’t yet gathered any meaningful momentum. At the other end of the scale, though, is the sustained push to embarrass banks into withdrawing their quietly active support of the fossil fuel industry generally, but coal quite specifically. The point of greatest vulnerability on this front is, very famously, the plan by Indian industrial conglomerate Adani to plough $10 billion into the expansion of its Abbot Point coal export terminal and the rail and mine infrastructure to feed that new capacity. Abbot Point sits on the edge of the Barrier Reef and the spoil from the week’s worth of dredging needed to open a new link to the main shipping channel is planned for dumping within the bounds of the reef national park, but about 40 kilometres from the nearest coral. Too close for comfort But this has proved too close for comfort. Abbot Point has become a unifying target for protest that is shaped and funded by the big-wigs of the international anti-fossil fuel campaign but is as keenly supported by pastoralists, viticulturalists, horse breeders, tree-changers and lawyers as it is the more usual ragtag of state-funded professional protesters. The Commonwealth Bank is a lead manager of the debt raising that Adani will need to pay to expand Abbot Point. As a result, as well as being asked to vote on the carbonistas attempt to force the CBA to fully account for the carbon emissions it is funding, shareholders that attend the bank’s annual general meeting on Wednesday can expect to hear how nasty Abbot Point is. So far five international banks have said they will not join the Abbot Point funding effort. These commitments were made in response to entreaties by a range of regional environmental lobbies. Each claimed the project risked the sanctity of the Great Barrier Reef. Interestingly, four of the refusnik banks had not actually been asked to consider financing the project. Indeed, as things stand, there is no proposal to fund though informational memoranda are about to be sent out. Adani has, so far, absorbed these very public blows with a silence that, in part, probably reflects its need to keep the banking community well and truly onside. Because, in all honesty, pulling together this funding arrangement is looking far harder than two years ago. There are two reasons for that. Dire financial straits First, while the long-term demand outlook for coal might be as robust as everyone says it is, the sector’s immediate financial circumstances are dire and any capital investment would have to be seriously challenged. But second, Australia’s welcome of coalmining has been undermined by a stunningly successful negative campaign. Even if it appreciates what is happening here, coal seems unable to design itself a strategic response. Last year, the coal industry’s lobby was absorbed by the Minerals Council because big coal was so frustrated at the juniors’ refusal to pay for the lobby. This refusal (or inability) to pay the price of contest means the industry is being outspent by activists in the Abbot Point v the Great Barrier Reef saga. This seems an extraordinary but emblematic state of affairs. Coal cats do not want to be herded. In NSW, things are rather more dire. The Hunter Valley is the wellspring of Australian coal. Its social and regulatory licence has long been simply assumed. But no longer. The planning regulator looks to have put a stop to the extension of Anglo American’s 35-year-old Drayton mine while the Land and Environment Court has overturned approvals that allowed the extension of Rio Tinto’s bigger and older Warkworth mine. At the same time, the progress of a collection of internationally owned greenfields projects has been made ever more complex by strategically targeted community agitation and legal contest. Suddenly, the future of NSW coal is a matter of contest. Support undermined If that wasn’t bad enough, it seems a host community’s once vigorous support of coal has become rather more ambiguous and uncertain. We hear recent polling in the Upper Hunter by the National Party identifies a debate poisoned by the rich theatre around coal seam gas and the risk some feel it poses to farm-sustaining aquifers. Apparently, the numbers have resulted in riding instructions that say CSG is toxic and sentiment is less aligned to coal than in the past. Advice to candidates is to embrace criticism of CSG projects and avoid any commitments on coal. I asked a long-time servant of the coal industry what should be done. His advice was unequivocal, not a little controversial and indicative of the local industrys sense of isolation. “First we must have a strategy that we will never give up, so that we match the process of antagonistic groups and persons,” he wrote. “Second, the persons affected by the decisions and lack of interest must become directly engaged in the political process. “This could involve . . . running candidates in the next state election who are prepared to put miners’ rights at the top of their agenda.” afr/Page/Uuid/ab9e87b2-6607-11e4-8399-43a45d5e8813
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 13:04:17 +0000
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