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Welcome to CoalWatch
CoalWatch is an interactive resource that tracks the coal industry’s expansion plans and helps builds a movement to stop these polluting moves.
Victoria can’t take action on climate change and expand its brown coal industry at the same time. The two are incompatible. To reduce our emissions and tackle climate change we need to be moving away from brown coal, not building new polluting projects.
It’s well known that Victoria’s energy portfolio is poorly balanced. In 2009, 92 percent of the state’s electricity came from burning brown coal. What’s less well known though is that the coal industry has huge expansion plans. Our state government has issued the coal industry with exploration and mining licences for huge swathes of our land across the state. If just a fraction of the proposed projects go ahead Victoria’s greenhouse emissions would increase massively, as would the industry’s water use and its impact on our local environments.
It’s time to draw a line in the sand. We need a moratorium on new coal projects, and on the expansion of existing coal projects for Victoria. And we need a plan to clean up the state’s electricity supply by shifting towards clean, renewable energy.
The first step is to know what’s on the drawing board. That’s where CoalWatch comes in.
CoalWatch provides a way for everyday Victorians to keep track of the coal industry’s ambitious expansion plans. To check what tax-payer money has been pledged to brown coal projects and the coal projects industry is spruiking to our politicians.
Victorian governments have so far given the coal industry the green light. Now it’s up to all of us to put up the stop sign. Help us make sure Victoria’s brown coal stays in the ground.
Watch this video to explore Victoria's dirty little secrets.
Why CoalWatch
Government told to make use of brown coal reserves
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Danny Morgan, ABC News
A mining company has told a parliamentary committee Victoria needs to make more productive use of its coal reserves.
Exergen is lobbying the State...
moreEnvironment Victoria calls for coal seam gas moratorium
Monday, 19 September 2011
Environment Victoria’s Campaigns Director Mark Wakeham will today tell a state parliamentary inquiry into mining developments that coal seam methane projects are dangerous and...
moreEPA faces challenge on brown-coal power plant
Friday, 10 June 2011
Environment groups will today launch a legal challenge over the Environment Protection Authority's approval for coal-fuelled power plant in the Latrobe Valley.
The EPA last month cleared the...
moreAustralia can afford climate action, but can’t afford new coal power
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Environment groups have responded to today’s release of positive new Treasury modeling for the carbon price with a call to ensure the MPCCC negotiates a package...
moreYallourn power plant interested in buyout
Thursday, 2 May 2011
Tom Arup, The Age
The owners of the high-emitting Yallourn brown coal power station in the Latrobe Valley say...
moreRenewables in reverse
Monday, 16 May 2011
Mark Wakeham, Climate Spectator
Close observers of Australia’s climate and energy policy perhaps won’t be gobsmacked to hear that the share of renewable energy in the Australian energy mix has fallen...
moreClean power's share drops
Monday, 16 May 2011
Adam Morton, The Age
The proportion of Australia's electricity that comes from clean sources has fallen sharply over the past 50 years despite a decade of federal and state climate change programs.
a...
moreCoal thrives as cleaner power fights losing battle
Monday, 16 May 2011
Nicky Phillip, Sydney Morning Herald
The proportion of Australia's energy produced from renewable sources such as wind and hydro has declined dramatically over the past 50 years,...
moreExplorations planned: Residents warned on mining
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Evan Schuurman, The Ballarat Courier
Central Highlands residents could be sitting on land marked for mining exploration, and probably have no idea about it, according to an environmental...
moreFarmer worries mining company has him pegged
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Royce Millar, The Age
Phil Piper got worried yesterday, and with good reason. The president of the Mirboo North Landcare group discovered, via The Age, that his small property in the rolling...
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Twitter
Join the Backwards March
Call on the Premier to stop taking Victoria backwards on our environment
It’s fair to say that the Baillieu Government’s performance on the environment this past year has been anything...
more
On Friday, 18 keen Environment Victoria supporters
visited the Barmah National Park, on the banks of the Murray
It was a chance for the group to experience the issues first hand, and hear a range of perspectives on Barmah, the Murray River and their future.
First up was Hilda Stewart, one of the national park's...
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Our volunteers
think we're great!
We'll that's what they said at our volunteer night last week, although admittedly we did supply them with alcohol and snacks before hand…
We had 20 or so people come along, some of them existing volunteers keen to meet each other and...
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STILL sitting, wishing, waiting
for the plan to save the Murray
Just as my last blog post went live suggesting a plan for how we use water in the Murray would be released in August, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority a href="http://www.mdba.gov.au/media_centre/media_releases/progress-on-proposed-basin-...
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What do you do when there's too much...... sewage?
If you're Barwon Water, you pump the excess recycled water into the creek
Bannockburn is a picturesque township 20 km west of Geelong. Nestled next to the town is the steep sided valley of Bruce’s Creek, home to birds, koalas, echidnas and stately gums. What could...
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Flickr
- Coal projects a dangerous distraction |
- Federal Renewable Energy Target becomes law |
- Improving the Renewable Energy Target |
- Plan B: An Agenda For Immediate Climate Action |
- Environment Victoria's response to the Brumby Government's plans for a new solar power station |
- Powering a desalination plant: clean energy or more coal? |
- Coal power station rebrand last gasp of polluting project |
- Coal export plans should be rejected |
- Community tells Premier: world does not need our dirty coal |
- Coastal threats report a wake-up call on climate change |
