Methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a warming potential 30 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100-year time-frame, makes up 91 per cent of fugitive emissions from coalmining in NSW, the report found. Five top-emitting underground coal mines are responsible for 44 per cent of NSW’s fugitive coalmining emissions.
“On-site abatement at existing mines is essential, particularly to reduce fugitive emissions. Additional regulatory measures will be required to achieve measurable on-site abatement,” the Commission finds.
The Commission urged government agencies, including the Environment Protection Authority and the Resources Regulator, to collaborate more effectively to streamline safety approvals and mandates for abatement technologies.
Coalmining operations in the Bylong Valley.Credit: Peter Rae
The report says though the NSW planning framework requires consideration of greenhouse gas emissions, only three mines have had enforceable emissions limits imposed by their consents. “Instead, conditions of consent have required mines to implement Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Management Plans. These plans have lacked ambition, clear goals and enforceability.”
The commission calls for planning law reforms to require a more rigorous assessment of emissions, and says consent authorities should consider how mining project’s direct emissions affect progress towards NSW’s legislated targets, and the impact of emissions created when coal is burned overseas.
As 87 per cent of NSW coal is exported, the vast majority of associated emissions are indirect “Scope 3” emissions. While these are accounted for overseas, the report notes their impact is “felt both globally and locally in NSW” by driving climate instability.
The report warned that the state’s coal sector, which earned $33.1 billion in export revenue in 2023-24, is vulnerable to declining demand, its major customers having made their own net zero pledges.
Modelling from the Commonwealth Government Treasury projects national coal production to drop by between 42 per cent and 51 per cent by 2035.
Net Zero Commission chairman Nick Rowley said the NSW government needed to better prepare for the decline of coal extraction.
“Coalmining has made a significant contribution to our economy and regional communities for
generations,” Rowley said. “Given global demand for thermal coal is likely to decline; we owe it to those communities to plan for a just transition.”
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The NSW Land and Environment Court last month granted consent orders to cancel a large coalmine approval on climate grounds, invalidating the state approval for a two-year extension of the Ulan thermal coal mine near Mudgee to dig up an extra 18.8 million tonnes of coal.
This followed the Court of Appeal overturning the 2022 approval of MACH Energy’s massive Mount Pleasant mine in the Hunter Valley in July, which set a precedent that the local impacts of global change must be considered. MACH Energy has been granted leave to appeal to the High Court.
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