 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Paranjoy Gohar Thakurtha with me here in the studio. I have Jeff Law. He is the editor of a website called Adani Watch. He's been a veteran environmental activist based in Hobart, Tasmania. This website, Adani Watch, is an initiative of the Bob Brown Foundation. And Jeff is among the people who are very, very perturbed in the manner in which the Adani Group is setting up a giant project in Queensland. So I'm going to discuss with him the project and why the Adani Group has become so controversial in his country. Thank you so much, Jeff, for coming here. My pleasure, Paranjoy. I just read a news report which has been published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which states that the Adani Group has been accused of giving false and misleading information in a court of law for which the group, the company is liable to be fined up to three million Australian dollars. Just tell us what is this all about? Well, this concerns their mining operation in Queensland, which involves clearing of the woodlands, the native vegetation, which has existed there for millennia. And Adani told the relevant authority in Queensland that it had not commenced those clearing operations when in fact they had already cleared 130 hectares. So they were accused in the court of providing false or misleading information to a government authority. They had to plead guilty because they knew they had done it and they have been fined about $20,000. Which could go up, you're saying? Well, in the scheme of things, this $20,000 is a little more than an embarrassment to the Adani Group. But as far as the people of Australia are concerned, it indicates again that this is a company which flouts environmental law and which has done so frequently in its Indian operations and which has been dogged in the courts and in the media by accusations of environmental destruction, as well as accusations of corruption over the period of its meteoric rise. In Australia, you have to understand that the proposed Adani Mine, as it's generally known as, this massive coal mine. This is in the Carmichael Basin and involves not just what is supposed to be the world's biggest greenfield coal mining project, but you have a railroad which goes all the way up to a point, Abbott Point, where there's a port under construction or port under renovation. And that's not very far from the Great Barrier Reef, which is a world heritage site, of course. Yeah, well, this whole operation has become the most notorious current business proposal in Australia because of the impact that it will have on global emissions through the burning of that coal in this country, in India, through the impacts on the Great Barrier Reef, both through climate change, but also by virtue of the passage of up to 500 ships per annum, carting that coal 10,000 kilometres across land and sea, and also because of the impacts on the indigenous people who have occupied that land for millennia. So it's become the most heavily criticised and most energetically opposed project in Australia. But Jeff, if I may interrupt you here. Yes, they had a grand plan of building a huge project. They've had to scale down the size and the scope of the project, but the fact is they've got clearances. They've got the green signal from the relevant government authorities and all the attempts by civil society organisations to challenge its implementation have not worked, including the petitions that have been moved by the indigenous peoples of that area. And in fact, though the project has been scaled down considerably, what was originally proposed some years ago and what it is at present is down, but the impression one gets out just reading media reports here in India is that cutting across political lines, there is support in the politicians of Australia who are supposed to represent the people of Australia for the project, especially the politicians of Queensland because it's going to create jobs for people in your country. Well, it's a tussle. It's a tussle between the people of Australia, a majority of whom are opposed to this coal mine and what it means for the reef and what it means for climate change, versus politicians who are favouring it and it would not... Who are supposed to represent these people? They're supposed to represent us, but it would not be the first time that a project which has obtained all of the necessary government approvals has fallen over because of public opposition. And that opposition is expressed in numerous ways in Australia. It's people on the streets, but it's also a very sophisticated campaign aimed at the contractors and other service industries that Adani requires for that mine to go ahead. And there have been more than 60 companies and contractors that have walked away from the project. And bankers, bankers. Including the big four banks of Australia. And it's a campaign that has spread not just throughout Australia, through all of the capital cities. Just two weeks ago, there were very intense protests in Munich at the headquarters of Siemens. That's right, because Siemens is supposed to supply the equipment for this project. I mean, what would you like to elucidate on what has... I mean, where does Siemens enter the picture? Well, Siemens has been contracted to provide the signalling equipment for the new 200 kilometres of rail line that would be required for the mine to proceed. And Siemens has found itself in the court of public opinion to be wanting, to be found wanting because it has said that it is going to go ahead with that contract. But it has tarnished its reputation by doing so and brought into question its own commitment to tackling climate change. But Jeff, what you say the court of public opinion is something which is very different from courts of law. And Siemens or Adani, the Adani group will say, look, you know, these are bleeding heart environmental activists. They don't want development. They don't want jobs for people in Australia. They don't want jobs for people in India. And they sort of pretend to be do-gooders, but they're actually opposed to development. That's the discourse. Well, this time 15 years ago, I was part of a campaign against a huge pulp mill that was going to devour the forests of Tasmania in Tasmania. And that pulp mill proposal acquired all of the necessary environmental approvals. And yet at the end of the day, it did not go ahead. And the company, which was the proponent of that pulp mill, no longer exists. We were told the same thing then, that this pulp mill was going to bring development, jobs, etc. and that we were flogging a dead horse by trying to stop it. Well, the mill didn't go ahead. The company behind it is dead. We've managed to protect many of those forests inside a World Heritage Area. We feel equally confident about our ability to stop the Adani machine in its tracks. You know, this is, I mean, it's not just your organization, the Bob Brown Foundation. There are large numbers of organization civil society groups within Australia who have been very, very active in opposing this project. And this is not today. It's been going on for several years now. But despite that, it seems that the project is going to go through and despite the best attempts by civil society organizations, activists such as you, it seems that Adani is going to have his way. And why is he going to have his way is because not only the federal government based in Canberra, but the government of Queensland is very, very supportive of this project. Well, the whole thing is very tenuous and it relies on a convoluted downright contrived plan whereby coal from Queensland in Australia would be shipped 10,000 kilometres across land and sea to a place called Goda. Right. I mean, it'll come to the dam report in Orissa and from there it'll move to Goda in Jharkhand. 700 kilometres past a whole lot of existing coal mines including past a coal lease owned by Adani itself. In order to get burnt at Goda to send power to Bangladesh, it is a complex contrived business plan reliant on sweetheart deals at every step of the way. Jeff, Adani says this is going to be good for India. This is going to be good for the people of Goda. It's going to be good for the people of Bangladesh. They're short of energy, they're short of power and people like you have no business to stop a project which is going to benefit large numbers of people in India, in Bangladesh and so on. Analysts say that the power will be overpriced, that it will be more expensive than power that can be produced through renewable means such as solar. Our job, from the point of view of an Australian, our priority is the future of the Great Barrier Reef and the future of the world's climate and the world simply cannot afford to have that massive basin of untapped coal resources opened up for exploitation not only by the Adani Group but by other companies that would use the infrastructure and the impact that that would have on the global climate at a time when we need to be scaling back the use of coal. But let me give you the counter view and it's not that I'm supporting big coal but the point is the argument is that when you look at generation of electricity, when you look at requirements, power requirements of developing countries like India, like Bangladesh, dependence on coal will come down but only gradually that renewables including solar energy remains very, very expensive. Capital, the capital investments required to set up comparable capacities for generation of electricity using solar panels and photovoltaic cells is still very, very expensive. Therefore, much as we hate that black coal, that black mineral, that black diamond, countries like India are going to depend on it in the foreseeable future and if India is going to get coal from a country like Australia which is superior to and better than the coal that's available in India, so what's wrong with that? So even if the government of India says yes, we want to become self-sufficient in coal and yes we have lots of coal but the economics of it in a sense favours especially if your power project or power generating project is not located very far from the coast where the coal comes, whether it be from Australia, whether it be from Indonesia. Well, in fact, the coal would be undercut. The power from the coal would be undercut by cheaper power coming from solar sources in India and it is simply a contrived way of selling that coal to take it all the way to the border with Bangladesh and then create power to sell to Bangladesh. If the power is so cheap, why isn't there an Indian market for it? Okay. So you're arguing that there's something terribly wrong with this project. You kept using the word contrived. Then the question would be why has it gone through? I mean, if indeed the price of electricity that would be formally would be eventually generated from this Godda project in Jharkhand would be expensive. I mean, if the economics of it and the business of it is not working out then why would the Adani group be setting up this project and why would it receive the kind of support it has not just from the government of India, different governments of India, though we have of course a new government in Jharkhand but certainly the government of Bangladesh. Well, it is a tussle as I said before. It's a tussle between those who are concerned about the future of the Earth's climate, the Earth's atmosphere and those who want to profit from continuing to use coal and who use this issue as a means of ingratiating themselves with people engaged in the coal mining industry as it currently is. So we have very self-serving arguments on the parts of those who say they are doing this in order to lift Indian people or Bangladeshi people out of poverty. In fact, these companies are out to make profits for themselves and if they can get governments to prop them up, they will do so. And meanwhile, those governments are doing what they can to ingratiate themselves with a particular demographic which wants to keep working in the coal industry. So what we are seeing is politics of division. Okay. My last question to you, Jeff. A little bit about the Bob Brown Foundation and why did you people, the foundation of which you're a part and you're the editor of Adani Watch, how do you feel the need to set up a website to talk about what the Adani Group is doing? Well, people in Australia are very familiar now with the Adani proposal to mine coal from Queensland, but they're not so familiar with the activities of the Adani Group across the rest of the world, whether it's the port facility they're attempting to set up in Myanmar, which involves a business arrangement with the corporation owned by the brutal Myanmar military or whether it's the string of ports around India whose expansion would push into fishing villages and destroy lagoons, fishing stocks, et cetera, or whether it's the destruction of parts of the ancient Hazdao Arand forest and the tribal... In Chhattisgarh, in Chhattisgarh. In the tribal lands being managed and that have been owned by the Gond people for millennia. And by the way, the Adani Group has supported a cultural project of the Gondes, the Gond tribal community just as they have in the case of the tribal people of Queensland, the original inhabitants. Yes, well, I think what they're trying to do here is greenwash their reputation through that project, especially when you consider the impacts that these mining operations are going to have on the indigenous people, whether in Australia or whether it's in India, on their water resources, on some of their cultural artifacts and sacred sites, and on their way of life. I think many will see the support of an indigenous art project as being rather disingenuous and self-serving. A few words about the Bob Brown Foundation. Well, the Bob Brown Foundation was set up by Bob Brown himself, who is a veteran of environmental battles and green issues in Australia over the last 45 years. Someone who is internationally recognised, who set up the Green Party in Australia, who spearheaded the campaign that stopped a dam in southwest Tasmania, who has pushed for extension of world heritage areas and protection of forests. Someone who is highly thought of all around the world, and he set up this foundation, and the Adani proposal in Queensland to extract that coal, have it burnt for power and pollute the atmosphere and destroy places such as the Barrier Reef by virtue of climate impacts is not something that can be ignored. Well, thank you so much, Jeff Law, for coming here to the studio of NewsClick and giving us your views. And time alone will tell whether environmental activists like Jeff Law, whether organisations like the Bob Brown Foundation and other civil society organisations would be able to check the implementation of a giant coal mine in Queensland, in Australia, and similar stories, a similar tussle is being played out in different parts of the world, in Goda and Jharkhand, in Bangladesh, in Myanmar. Well, time alone will tell who wins and who loses. Thank you very much for being with us on this programme. Keep watching NewsClick.