Adani gives ‘green light’ to $16bn Carmichael coal mine – by Joshua Robertson (The Guardian – June 6, 2017)

https://www.theguardian.com/

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has given the “green light” to the Carmichael mine and rail project, but it will still hinge on its Australian arm, Adani Mining, gaining bank backing for the contentious venture.

Adani’s top executive in Australia, Jeyakumar Janakaraj, took a dig at “activists who sit in creature comfort and criticise us” while trumpeting the decision to invest in Australia’s largest proposed coalmine. The company is yet to secure its bid for a $900m infrastructure loan from the federal government for a railway that would help other miners open up Queensland’s Galilee Basin.

Adani said the “final investment decision” by Adani Mining’s Indian parent marked “the official start of one of the largest single infrastructure – and job creating – developments in Australia’s recent history”.

Janakaraj, the chief executive of Adani Mining said the company was delivering on its promise to “address power poverty for hundreds of millions in India and unacceptably high unemployment in regional Queensland”.

“To those activists who sit in creature comfort and criticise us, I ask a simple question – what are you doing for those people?” Adani said the company was committed to “the largest single investment by an Indian corporation in Australia” despite opposition from the environmental movement.

For the rest of this article, click here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/06/adani-gives-green-light-to-16bn-carmichael-coal-mine