Kids’ bid to block coal mine scores victory

Teenagers suing to block expansion of an Australian coal mine scored a "landmark" victory yesterday, with a judge agreeing the project would cause them climate-related harm. 

A group of eight high-schoolers -- backed by an activist octogenarian nun -- brought a class action against Australia's pro-coal conservative government over a planned mine extension near Sydney.

While a federal judge rejected the group's calls for an injunction to stop the project outright, he ruled the government must take into account the damage the project would do to the group's health, wealth and wellbeing.

"The minister has a duty to take reasonable care to avoid causing personal injury to the children when deciding... to approve or not approve the extension project," Justice Mordy Bromberg found.

Legal experts said the ruling was significant because it was the first time a court had accepted expert testimony about the vast potential impact of climate change on younger generations and the government's duty to consider that impact in weighing new fossil fuel projects.

In the ruling, Bromberg said, "what might fairly be described as the greatest inter-generational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next."

Courts are increasingly becoming the front line in battles over the future of the planet.  A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered oil giant Shell to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in a landmark victory for climate activists with implications for energy firms worldwide.