The economic terrorism of radical environmentalists trying to destroy the coal industry in the name of their Holy Writ of Climate Change, represents an altruistic evil – using a ‘good cause’ to justify iniquity. Whatever emerges from the current Climate Change Conference in Paris, the participation of so many climate-concerned world leaders has given an aura of sanctimony to those Australians doing whatever it takes, whatever the consequences, to restrict the growth of CO2 by killing coal.

For the 61 blinkered manifesto-signing ‘prominent people’ demanding a moratorium on Australian coal exports and that no new mines be approved, there was an unwanted intrusion of reality when even the lefty ABC’s Fact Check found in favour of Malcolm Turnbull’s assertion that Australia exports the world’s cleanest coal, which does less atmospheric damage than its rivals. After environmental warrior Ian Dunlop (a renegade from the coal industry) claimed Turnbull’s assertion ‘Was not borne out by the facts’ (without offering any in rebuttal), Fact Check endorsed Turnbull ‘s obviously correct point that the activists’ objective of preventing Australian thermal coal from meeting rapidly increasing demand for power generation in India in the name of blocking CO2 emissions, would have the perverse effect of making emissions worse as its replacement would be lower quality coal from other sources such as local and Indonesia.

The reasons Fact Check gave for Australian coal’s high quality is its low moisture and ash content, and high carbon content, compared with other countries, particularly Indonesia, which is the world’s largest coal exporter. ‘As a consequence, less Australian coal is needed to generate the same amount of energy, leading to lower carbon emissions by weight compared with coal from other countries.’ In India it would take 1.5 tonnes of local coal to generate the energy of only one tonne of Australian coal. And there are other benefits from using Australian coal, such as being low in sulphur, arsenic, selenium, mercury and boron compared to many overseas coals.

No matter what economic self-harm the leaders of the Western world decide to do to themselves in Paris, there is no prospect they will succeed in stopping Asia’s projected massive growth in coal-fired electricity generation that the International Energy Agency says will result in Australia’s thermal coal exports rising by 37 per cent by 2040. By then Asia will account for four out of every five tonnes of thermal coal consumed. This will be despite a significant increase in both nuclear power and renewable energy that will nevertheless represent only a fraction of Asia’s energy needs. And Asia will always need Australia’s main coal export income earner – coking coal – which is essential for steelmaking, but which radical activists also want to keep in the ground.

It will take more than an ABC Fact Check to stop the activists’ destructive assault on the coal industry. The ‘lawfare’ of obstructive legal proceedings is continuing unabated as the Senate fails to agree to the government’s proposal to end this form of economic terrorism. This is imposing costs not only on the delayed projects but also on Australian taxpayers as $2.5 million in costs awarded to the Commonwealth on 18 unsuccessful ‘delaying tactic’ legal actions cannot be recovered from ‘straw’ entities. And in the mother of all absurdities, the (taxpayer-supported) Australian Conservation Foundation is pursuing a Federal Court action likely to last a year against governmental approval of the controversial (and fiscally marginal) Indian-owned Adani project. The claim is that Australian coal burnt in Indian power generators would create CO2 emissions that would damage the Great Barrier Reef in breach of Australia’s World Heritage obligations. This ludicrous attempt to extend the court’s jurisdiction to overseas events could have serious implications. And in another piece of economic terrorism, Wotif founder Graeme Wood is funding a chaotic federal court anti-Adani case by an indigenous man seeking to overturn a Native Title Tribunal approval of the $16 billion project’s mining lease on traditional lands. Economic terrorism could end up costing us even more than the armed version.