Australia yesterday approved a controversial coal mine extension, doubling down on a commitment to continue extracting fossil fuels, despite growing pressure to cut carbon emissions.
Australian Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley green-lighted Whitehaven Coal’s Vickery mine extension near Sydney, just a week after the pro-coal conservative government said that global demand was rising and vowed to keep mining coal for export.
It comes ahead of the UN COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, and as world leaders urge Australia to step up climate action and commit to a target for reaching net-zero emissions.
In her decision, Ley said she “found that the approval of the proposed action is consistent with Australia’s commitments under the Paris Agreement,” adding that the mining company had identified Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as likely customers.
The mine has attracted controversy in Australia and a lawsuit from eight teenagers who scored a major victory in May when a judge agreed extending it would cause them climate-related harm.
However, while the federal judge ruled that the government must take into account the damage the project would do to the group’s health, wealth and well-being, he rejected their calls for an injunction to stop the project outright.
“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.
Ley has attached a number of conditions to the mine — which will produce a mix of coking coal used to make steel and thermal coal for electricity generation — including that threatened species living in the area and nearby rivers are protected.
However, Tim Buckley, from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, slammed the move as “ignoring the science of climate change and the rapidly escalating economic cost of inaction.”
“The Australian court system has ruled that our government has a duty of care to future generations, but our federal government continues to ignore this — and increased stranded asset costs will be the direct result,” he said.
Australia is one of the world’s largest producers of coal and natural gas, but has also suffered under increasingly extreme climate-fueled droughts, floods and bushfires in recent years.
A study published in the journal Nature last week found that 89 percent of global coal reserves — and 95 percent of Australia’s share — must be left untouched to address the climate crisis.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six