Adani's Aussie project in trouble as Queensland Premier vetoes funding

The premier of Queensland has vetoed the funding of rail line project saying the company has been listed in the dirty dozen list

The Adani Group’s coal mine project in Australia has once again run into rough weather.

The opposition this time is from the premier of Queensland, who has used her veto against funding the project.

The project has also drawn the ire of the green lobby because it has fifth place on the ‘dirty dozen’ list of global projects, which have put the goal of keeping global warming under control at risk. An email query sent to the Adani Group remained unanswered.

“As I committed during the election campaign, I have written to the Prime Minister, exercising Queensland’s veto over any NAIF (Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund) funding for the Adani rail line,” said Annastacia Palaszczuk, premier of Queensland, in a tweet on Tuesday. 

Palaszczuk was re-elected premier of Queensland this month.

In a press statement issued in March this year, the Adani Group said Palaszczuk had reaffirmed the Queensland government’s commitment to the project. However, her stance on the matter has changed. The project involves constructing rail tracks of almost 400 km from the Carmichael mine site to the Adani-owned and -operated bulk coal-loading facility at Abbott Point in Australia. 

The group first invested in this integrated project in 2010, when prices and demand for coal were at high. The coal mine and the related infrastructure project have since faced resistance from various quarters over financial viability, environment concerns, and local resistance. The coal mine project is expected to require an investment of more than $16.5 billion. The Adani Group has so far invested more than $3.3 billion in the coalmine, railway, and port project combined.

The report — “Dirty Dozen: How Public Finance Drives the Climate Crisis through Oil, Gas, and Coal Expansion” — was part of the Big Shift Global campaign, a multi-stakeholder, global campaign coordinated by organisations from the Global North and South.

“The World Bank’s private sector arm, International Finance Corporation (IFC), is indirectly involved in funding for Adani because they have provided $1.18 billion to Adani Power through loans, bonds and share issues. The Australia Institute has calculated that the mine would create annual emissions similar to those from countries like Malaysia and Austria,” the report said.

NTPC’s Bangladesh power project is also on the list. The power company will construct and operate the plant with a 1,320 megawatt (Mw) capacity. The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and NTPC are equal joint venture partners in the project. “This plant will impact the nearby Sundarbans coastal forest (a UNESCO World Heritage site),” the report said.

The report said these projects were not necessarily the worst or biggest fossil fuel projects benefitting from public finance, but at the One Planet Summit in Paris, the Big Shift Global campaign and its partners cited them as examples of activities that communities and citizens wanted public finance institutions to stop supporting.