Big Coal Feels the Heat: The Sharma Case and the Role of Litigation in Keeping Coal in the Ground

The legal team wanted to challenge the federal Minister for the Environment’s potential approval of a coal mine expansion on the ground that the decision could expose children to future climate harm. David Barnden explains that Australia did not offer the team an overarching federal human rights framework or a broad set of constitutional rights for this claim. They therefore asked whether the common law of negligence could recognize a duty to take reasonable care when exercising the Minister’s approval power.

The trial court found that the Minister owed children a duty to take reasonable care to avoid causing them personal injury when deciding whether to approve the project. It declined to grant the requested injunction. As Barnden explains in the webinar, the judge had recognized the duty but did not yet have a decision by the Minister before him from which to determine whether she would breach it. The Minister subsequently approved the expansion while appealing the duty of care ruling.

Barnden describes evidence from the students about their experiences and concerns, firefighters about worsening fire conditions, and experts in climate science, public health, actuarial analysis, and economics. He places particular emphasis on climate scientist Will Steffen’s evidence concerning the project’s emissions, the remaining carbon budget, and the risks of climate tipping points. The case shows how the team sought to make the contribution of a single project relevant to a court assessing future harm.

Nick Kelly argues in the webinar that a case about one project can raise questions that matter across an approval system and bring climate evidence into public view. He also cautions against treating individual project lawsuits as the entire strategy for addressing fossil fuel production. For him, the wider value of a case depends partly on the legal issues it raises and how it connects with a broader campaign. The subsequent appeal limits the legal effect of the trial court’s duty of care ruling.

Varsha Yajman describes litigation as another avenue for young people already participating in school strikes. She says that taking the students’ concerns to court helped counter portrayals of young activists as uninformed or merely skipping school. In her account, the legal case gave the movement another way to communicate its demands, regardless of whether the case ultimately succeeded on appeal.

The proposed duty came from the common law of negligence, while the Minister’s authority to approve the project came from legislation. The webinar identifies a central legal question: could a duty to avoid climate-related injury to children operate alongside the Minister’s statutory decision-making role? That question became a major issue on appeal, where the Full Federal Court rejected the proposed duty.

Climate litigators and researchers can examine how the legal team built its evidence and tested a duty of care argument under Australian law. Youth organizers can see how the plaintiffs connected litigation with school strikes and public advocacy. The discussion is also useful for advocates working on fossil fuel projects and finance: the panel considers how a case about one mine can inform a broader campaign, even when its legal outcome changes on appeal.