Australian court overturns landmark climate ruling

The Australian federal court threw out a landmark legal ruling that the country's environment minister had a duty to protect children from climate change, which was a potential legal weapon to fight fossil fuel projects.

According to the court, Environment Minister Sussan Ley did not have to weigh the harm climate change would inflict on children when assessing the approval of new fossil fuel projects.

The judgment overturned a July 2021 ruling by a lower court that found the minister had a duty to avoid causing personal injury or death to those under 18s due to emissions of carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere.

Anjali Sharma, 17, who launched the legal action in 2020, said the minister's successful appeal had left the students "devastated".

The federal court ruled that the minister had no responsibility to avoid harm or death to those under 18 caused by carbon dioxide emissions into the Earth's atmosphere, overturning a July 2021 decision by a lower court.

According to the federal court, emissions from the Whitehaven's Vickery coal mine, which was the center of the case, posed only a "tiny increase in risk" to the students.

Lawyer George Newhouse of Macquarie University said the Sharma decision reflected Australia's lack of a bill of rights.

He said that Australia doesn't have the scope for the successful climate change litigation that we see in Europe because they have a constitution that contains no human rights.

Sharma and her fellow students will consider whether to appeal to Australia's highest court.

Australia has been heavily affected by climate change, with droughts, deadly bushfires, bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef, and floods becoming more common and severe as global weather patterns shift.