Shortly after the Minerals Council warned the government to undermine mining “at your peril”, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek approved three new coal mine extensions. This nature-destroying decision has come just a few weeks before the government is set to host the Global Nature Positive Summit. The government is clearly pursuing a small target strategy but, in avoiding conflict, it risks offering voters a small and unexciting platform at the next election.

The government is all over the place with mixed messaging. To avoid angering the gambling industry, bigots and the mining industry, the government made a series of unforced errors that angered some of its key constituencies. It balked at implementing an outright ban on gambling ads, fumbling a policy with almost universal public support. And, in trying to avoid a “nasty” debate over census questions to capture data about Australia’s queer community, it succeeded only in alienating gay and gender diverse citizens.

But in appeasing the mining industry by approving new fossil fuel projects, the government is not just fuelling climate change that is damaging nature, it is contributing to the extreme heatwaves, floods, bushfires and extreme weather events that are driving up the cost of living – every new coal mine that’s approved means some other sector of the economy has to reduce its emissions even more.

Let’s be clear, there is no “transition” to a clean economy while the federal government is approving new fossil fuel projects. The International Energy Agency, the United Nations and the world’s scientists have been absolutely crystal clear: no new gas fields, coal mines or mine extensions are required.

Yet, while Foreign Minister Penny Wong was at the United Nations General Assembly talking about sea level rise being a threat to the Pacific, Plibersek was here at home granting approval for three massive coal mine extensions – one of the key sources of sea level rise – to operate until nearly 2070.

While the government makes itself a small target, Plibersek just approved some of the biggest and dirtiest coal mine extensions in Australia. Together, the three coal mines approved will produce more than 1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over their lifetimes. You don’t need to be a climate scientist to know 1 billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions is a lot.

Two of the coal mines the Environment Minister just extended are already so large they would swallow her electorate of Sydney, along with the Prime Minister’s adjacent electorate of Grayndler. If the Mount Pleasant mine was in Canberra, it would dig up everything from the War Memorial to Woden. Since becoming Environment Minister, Plibersek has approved seven new coal mines or extensions. There are 25 more coal mine proposals in the pipeline.

Australia’s gas and coal industries are in the business of causing climate change. If you’re struggling with the cost of living, you need to know mining more coal and drilling for more gas will drive it up further. The gas and coal industries pollute our air with greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, which trap heat in the atmosphere. A warmer atmosphere not only leads to more droughts and heatwaves, as we experienced during the Black Summer bushfires, but it holds more water vapour, which fuels heavy rainfall events, like the multiple floods that devastated Lismore and Northern Rivers area of NSW.

Extreme weather events, turbocharged by Australia’s gas and coal industries, not only wipe out people’s homes and businesses, they drive up the cost of insurance for everyone. Floods, droughts and heatwaves also destroy crops and damage yields, pushing up the price of fruit and vegetables. Since Tony Abbott abolished the carbon price, gas and coal companies pay no price for this damage to our community and other industries. And for all the profits coal mines generate for their largely foreign owners, they generate few jobs compared to almost any other industry.

The more coal mine extensions are approved, the more mining crowds out other industries. Unlike a proposed restaurant or a proposed housing development, from the moment it is announced, a proposed coal mine imposes significant external costs on other land owners, and the local economy. New businesses, particularly agriculture and tourism businesses, are unlikely to set up next to a dusty, noisy mine site. Even after they close, abandoned mine sites are rarely rehabilitated back to their original state so they can be used for something else. Filling in the Upper Hunter’s final mine voids would cost somewhere between $12 billion and $25 billion. The NSW government holds just a fraction of this cost in environmental bonds for all mines in the state.

This week The Australia Institute and a group of Australia’s leading climate and environment organisations published an open letter in The Canberra Times and Nine papers, calling on the federal government to tell Australians when it will stop approving new coal, oil and gas projects and end native forest logging. As the federal government kicks off its Global Nature Positive Summit to “drive investment in nature and strengthen activities to protect and repair our environment”, you can bet there will be no talk of protecting nature by ending native forest logging or new coal mine approvals.

But there are signs the government may yet have the appetite for some bold reforms.

It’s good news the government has asked Treasury to model changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. Together, these two policies increased the price of housing beyond the reach of many Australians, particularly younger Australians. The popular changes to the stage three tax cuts show the public supports reform when more people benefit and the changes are explained clearly. It won’t solve the housing crisis, but it will stop making things worse.

But when it comes to protecting the environment, “making things worse” is too often the outcome. By pursuing a small target strategy, the government is only allowing the fossil fuel industry to imperil Australia’s farming land, our native species and our climate. There’s nothing “nature positive” about that.