The New South Wales Court of Appeal has overturned overturn approval for the Mount Pleasant coal mine expansion near Muswellbrook—the state’s largest proposed coal project. The Court found that the Independent Planning Commission failed to properly consider the climate impacts of all associated carbon pollution, including from exported coal burned overseas.

This decision follows legal action by the Denman, Aberdeen, Muswellbrook, Scone Healthy Environment Group and raises serious questions about whether the project can proceed. The NSW Land and Environment Court must now decide whether conditions can be imposed to validate the approval, or if the project must go back to the planning stage.

Mach Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine expansion in Muswellbrook is one of the polluting coal projects in Australia, so big that it covers nearly the entire area of the electorates of Sydney and Grayndler, and this court decision overturns the state and federal government approvals of the polluting project.