Mining Giant Credits Activists for Possibly Saving Great Barrier Reef

Fierce environmental activism is being blamed--and credited--with spurring the potential demise of Australia's controversial Carmichael coal mine project.

Indian mining giant Adani lashed out at activists on Tuesday, accusing them of causing delays that prompted financial backers to withdraw their support for the vast Queensland mine and port expansion along the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).

Environmentalists have long warned that the project would irreparably harm the GBR. It has faced significant hurdles, the latest of which was the London-based Standard Chartered Bank's announcement on Monday that it was withdrawing from its advisory role on the project.

Last week, Australia's federal court revoked the government's mine approval. The court sided with conservationists who argued that the license given to the project in 2014 did not account for the significant environmental impacts.

The court's decision was "based on a failure by the minister to have regard to the conservation advice for two federally listed vulnerable species"--the yakka skink and the ornamental snake--according to Sue Higginson, principal solicitor of the Environment Defenders Office NSW. The lawsuit also alleged a failure "to consider global greenhouse emissions from coal burning."

If built, Carmichael would be Australia's largest coal mine and one of the biggest in the world. Construction would require massive seafloor dredging along the GBR, and at maximum production, the mine would produce 121 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions yearly.

On the same day as the court order, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced it would not support the mine. This prompted Greenpeace Australia Pacific climate and energy campaigner Nikola Casule to call the Carmichael project "unbankable, unprofitable, and unconscionable."

Reeling from those setbacks, Adani released a statement on Tuesday saying that it had terminated the contract with Standard Chartered "on the basis of Adani's own concerns over ongoing delays to a now five-year-long approvals process in Australia."

The statement then continued, referencing the recent court ruling: "In the event Australia's federal approvals framework is not further undermined by activists seeking to exploit legal loopholes, enabling the project and the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment it would bring to be delivered, Adani would happily work with the bank in the future."

The threat of a new, major coal mine comes amid a pending climate crisis while countries struggle to enact new greenhouse gas regulations. On Tuesday, the government of Australia released a copy of its greenhouse gas reduction goals ahead of the Conference of the Parties 21 (COP21) climate talks in Paris, which critics decried as being "weak" and overly friendly to the "big polluters" including the coal, gas, and oil industries.