Australian Greens question colossal China coal deal

Yahoo News 8 Feb 10;

SYDNEY (AFP) – A massive Australian coal export deal with China, seen as boosting the economy and creating jobs, would ultimately result in enormous greenhouse gas emissions, The Greens political party said Sunday.

Australian miner Resourcehouse announced Saturday it had secured a 60-billion-US-dollar deal with energy-hungry China to ship 30 million tonnes of coal a year from a proposed mine in Queensland.

But Greens Senator Bob Brown said the deal would result in the release of significant carbon pollution into the world's atmosphere once the coal was shipped to China and burned to create electricity.

The deal did not line up with the Australian government's push to introduce a carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) to limit greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, he said.

"In one signed contract this single coal export deal with China will produce more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere... than the government's CPRS scheme, in fact more than double," Brown told reporters.

"They are saying we have to act on climate change in this country... but we don't have to act on it. It's going to come out of chimneys in China so why should we worry."

A spokesman for Treasurer Wayne Swan declined to comment on Brown's remarks.

Coal is Australia's largest export, contributing some 54.7 billion dollars (47.5 billion US) to the national coffers in 2008-2009.

Australia's government, which has been pushing to get a proposed carbon trading scheme through parliament, has said it will cut greenhouse gas emissions by between five and 25 percent of 2000 levels by 2020, depending on the commitments of other nations.

The Resourcehouse deal, described as Australia's biggest ever export contract, would supply China Power International Development (CPI) from a thermal coal mine in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland for 20 years.

Queensland's Labor premier, Anna Bligh, said the development, which will include four underground mines, two open cut mines, a new coal port and a rail line, would be good for the state's economy.

"What the signing of this contract with the Chinese company means is that Australia's largest single export deal ever signed will be happening right here in Queensland," Bligh said on Saturday.

Australia is already China's largest source of coal imports, accounting for 43.9 million of the 125.8 million tonnes of coal imported by the country in 2009.