Complaints risks putting defence ministry on collision course with Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
The Ministry of Defence has objected to at least four planned windfarms in the past year over fears the spinning blades could cause “unacceptable interference” with radars used to detect military aircraft.
MoD officials raised concerns in late June over plans for an onshore windfarm in County Durham that could result in aircraft “not being detected” within an RAF Low Flying Area, according to a letter to Britain’s planning authority.
Across the Pacific, the changes wrought by a warming climate are visible everywhere. Surging sea levels, warming oceans and more intense cyclones and flooding.
This week, delegates from the pre-COP31 Pacific climate summit, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, visited Fiji and Tuvalu to witness the effects of sea level rise first-hand.
Australia announced it would spend a modest A$13 million to help Pacific nations electrify and transition to renewables, including $7.3 million for energy professionals to lead the region’s transition, and money for solar-powered schools in Fiji and renewable projects in PNG. While these initiatives are welcome, this is not new money; these projects are funded out of the government’s Pacific program, launched at COP29 in 2024.
The Australian government has faced sustained criticism for its fossil fuel exports, and recent approval of a large coal mine expansion. Pacific leaders told this week’s summit the world must continue its efforts to limit global heating to 1.5°C, and provide “faster, fairer” access to climate finance for developing countries.
Pacific nations have contributed very little to global emissions, yet face disproportionate climate risks. Improving the Pacific region’s energy mix would provide a measure of climate justice. But we must go further – and faster – for meaningful change.
Electrify fast
Electricity in the Pacific is currently among the least reliable and most expensive in the world. Improving energy independence, primarily by switching to renewable energy sources, would lead to a host of positive changes.
Most Pacific Island countries have committed to achieving 100% renewable energy by 2030, recognising the central role fossil fuels play in driving climate change. A significant number of these countries have signed or endorsed calls for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. In April this year, several countries also launched the Tassiriki Call for a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific, which outlines immediate steps to transition to 100% renewable Pacific energy economies.
Around 80% of the Pacific’s energy supply comes from imported oil products. For some, especially the more geographically remote islands, this figure is much higher, reaching 90–100% of total energy.
The average Pacific island citizen already pays some of the world’s highest electricity prices, almost three times the global average. As fuel prices escalate, transitioning to renewable energy is both an environmental and economic imperative. Most importantly, the transition is a tool to secure energy autonomy.
Heavy machinery at a land reclamation site in Funafuti, Tuvalu.Saeed Khan/Getty
Tech alone is not enough
Shifting to renewables is an impossible task for Pacific countries to achieve alone. Outdated power infrastructure and remote geographies with low populations translate into prohibitive costs.
Developed countries like Australia should support Pacific nations to replace diesel-powered electricity with renewable technology, including decentralised solar energy systems with battery storage.
This would provide immediate access to energy, reduce supply vulnerabilities and reduce costs. Support to expand energy access for all is also desperately needed, and new access must use appropriate renewable energy options, leapfrogging outdated fossil-fuel generation.
This would also enable long-term development, providing benefits such as refrigeration for food and medicine, clean water systems, communications, education and, significantly, economic opportunities.
But delivering technology alone is insufficient. Across the Pacific there are many solar panels delivered with good intentions but not accompanied by the training or financial support to enable communities to maintain and sustain them. Australia knows this: an evaluation of a $9.58 million Australian solar installation project in Tonga found a lack of budget for training and maintenance.
How to transition
Australia can help by designing renewable energy packages for the Pacific that include three priorities:
Ensure local ownership of the technology. Communities everywhere are more likely to support and protect initiatives they helped create. Australia’s international development guidelines include a commitment to locally led development. Installing solar is an opportunity to see this brought to life.
Train and support local technicians to maintain, repair and care for renewable energy systems. Not only does this increase local ownership of the project, it provides those trained with transferable skills.
Provide sufficient funding for the purchase of replacement parts over the life of the system.
The commitments Australia made this week for renewable energy in the Pacific are welcome. But if Australia is serious about playing its part in securing a sustainable energy transition across the Pacific, it needs to provide support that extends beyond the delivery of technology.
Empowering communities to operate and own their renewable technology is a crucial step.
Charles T. Hunt has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian federal government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Minderoo Foundation. He is also affiliated with the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research as a (non-resident) senior fellow.
Pia Treichel receives UK international development funding from the UK government. She is affiliated with the International Institute for Environment and Development and ODI Global's Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative.
Tim Flannery receives funding from the Minderoo Foundation and is affiliated to the Climate Council and the Australian Museum.
Julie Boulton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Australia’s highest court has just delivered its first-ever decision in a climate case. And it could sour the economic argument for developing new coal and gas projects in New South Wales, and possibly Australia.
This High Court judgement is timely – Australia is co-hosting an international pre-COP31 climate summit in the Pacific this week and is facing renewed pressure from Pacific leaders over fossil fuel projects.
The court’s decision on Wednesday – in a case brought by a community group against mining company MACH Energy over a coalmine expansion – is not a unified legal declaration against fossil fuels.
But this restrained, technical judgement quietly sets a new standard for coal and gas projects in the state – and potentially across the country. It means planning authorities must consider the whole carbon footprint of these projects, including the emissions produced by customers burning these fossil fuels overseas.
Although the decision concerns one specific coal mine – MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coal mine in NSW – it directly affects the 17 other coal proposals currently in the state’s planning pipeline.
It could also provide a legal blueprint for how courts across the country handle future cases against fossil fuel projects.
The case has put fossil fuel companies, including those that mine coal, on notice.EvgenyMiroshnichenko/Getty
Remind me, what is climate litigation?
Climate litigation involves taking governments or companies – and occasionally individuals – to court in a bid to hold them responsible for climate harms.
There are now thousands of these cases worldwide. After the United States and Brazil, Australia has more of these cases than anywhere else: 193 cases by the end of 2025. This wealth of climate litigation is due to the prevalence of fossil fuel projects in Australia, coupled with lax regulation and high community engagement.
Climate litigation is used because a court can legally require governments and companies to act, in a way that community opposition or political pressure can’t. It is particularly effective where government regulation is slow, weak or missing altogether.
The Mount Pleasant open-cut coal mine sits near Muswellbrook, in NSW’s Hunter Valley. It was originally approved to run until December 2026, digging up to 10.5 million tonnes of coal each year.
In 2021, the mine’s owner, MACH Energy, sought to extend its life by 22 years, and double its output to 21 million tonnes a year until 2048.
Most of the mine’s climate footprint does not come from the mine itself, but from the burning of the coal it produces. The vast majority of its emissions are classified as “scope 3” – this includes the emissions produced when the mine’s coal is burned overseas.
In 2022, the Independent Planning Commission, the body that decides on major NSW projects, approved the expansion of the mine. But a local community group, the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group, challenged that approval in the NSW Land and Environment Court.
The community group argued the planning commission had failed to ask how the mine’s emissions would worsen climate change in the Hunter region. The group also argued the commission breached a NSW planning rule that required it to consider imposing conditions to minimise greenhouse gas emissions, including scope 3 emissions, to the “greatest extent practicable”.
Although the community group lost in the Land and Environment Court, the NSW Court of Appeal unanimously agreed with their arguments, and declared the approval invalid in July 2025. MACH Energy appealed this decision, bringing the case to the High Court in May this year.
The Hunter Valley is renowned for its thriving wine industry and picturesque landscapes.Ben Graham/Getty
What did the High Court decide?
The High Court’s decision to oppose the Mount Pleasant mine expansion was not unified: three judges were in favour, and two against.
The three judges in favour reached the same conclusion. They ruled the Independent Planning Commission didn’t do enough to assess the mine’s scope 3 emissions, or how these might be mitigated or reduced.
They also rejected the idea that scope 3 emissions, when they happen overseas, are someone else’s problem. As Justice Michelle Gordon put it, these emissions have the same detrimental impact no matter how they are categorised.
This means that for every NSW coal or gas project approval, decision-makers must now consider imposing conditions to deal with scope 3 emissions, such as requiring companies to buy carbon offsets.
However, offsets are no silver bullet, as they allow companies to compensate for their current emissions and effectively keep burning the same amount of fossil fuels.
What comes next
Community groups now have a clear, High Court-endorsed basis to challenge approvals where authorities haven’t properly assessed a project’s full carbon footprint.
In NSW, developers of future coal projects will be expected to propose ways to curb their scope 3 emissions, potentially at significant cost. This could dramatically reshape the economic case for continued fossil fuel production in Australia.
The case now returns to the NSW Land and Environment Court, which can suspend the operation of the mine or set conditions on its scope 3 emissions. The latter option, however, may be extremely expensive for MACH Energy.
The High Court’s decision is consistent with other recent rulings across the globe.
In Norway and the United Kingdom, courts have required decision-makers to deal with all greenhouse gas emissions linked to fossil fuel projects, not just those from the project site itself.
And last year, the International Court of Justice found countries are legally required to assess the effects of fossil fuel projects, both in their own jurisdictions and overseas.
While the High Court’s ruling is focused on NSW law, courts and decision-makers across Australia are paying close attention. This landmark decision shows the climate harms of fossil fuels can no longer legally be ignored.
Nina Araneta-Alana receives funding from the Australian Research Council under the Laureate Program on Global Corporate Climate Accountability.
Jacqueline Peel receives funding from the Australian Research Council for her Laureate Program on Global Corporate Climate Accountability. She is affiliated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, serving as a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group III (mitigation) for the Seventh Assessment Report. As part of a group of legal experts from Melbourne Climate Futures at the University of Melbourne, Jacqueline Peel was part of "amicus curiae" written and oral submissions granted leave by the High Court in the MACH Energy v Denman case.
Liz Hicks currently receives funding from the Manchester-Melbourne-Toronto Research Fund for a project on constitutional accountability and the environment. She is also a member of the Australian Greens Victoria.
Suzanne Varrall receives funding from the Australian Research Council under the Laureate Program on Global Corporate Climate Accountability.
A once-abundant snail nearly disappeared as weirs and irrigation diverted water from its river home. But it found protection in the very structures that almost wiped it out.
