Dr Nikki Williams: "It was very interesting for us at the beginning of last year, which was 2012, to see a document in the media called stopping the coal export boom.  Which was put together by a number of NGOs and funded by a number of prominent entities including foundations from the United States and other businesses, well-known businesses, here in Australia.  But the lead agency was Greenpeace which specifically identified a budget of $6 million to run a campaign to stop Australia's coal exports.  And it had a series of seven different areas of focus which included leveraging genuine community concerns about coal, sea and gas, and manipulating those concerns to draw parallels with the coal industry.  It had a specific campaign around the development of the road and rail and port infrastructure that is necessary to be built in order to support new developments in the Galilee Basin in Queensland.  It had a specific campaign designed to create fear amongst the population focused in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, around dust impacts and the health consequences of dust in the environment.  It had very specific ideas about how to use the legal system and the planning system to stall, to delay, and to defeat projects in order to drive up costs.  It has a very specific program to deter investment in our sector and to increase the risk and the cost of capital.  So this sort of evidence takes the debate to a new level.  So anyone that was saying well this is just generally driven by a concern about the environmental impacts of coal, can now see that it's actually part of a broader strategy and indeed forms part of what's known as the fossil fuel resistance which is a sort of more global movement to shut down the industry.  They are explicit that is their aim and they're of course assisted in the case of Australia by the Greens Party who has a platform which says no to coal."

Categories: Activism, Environment, Environment & Climate, Global Markets
Author: Dr Nikki Williams