An Australian court yesterday delivered a landmark ruling by rejecting plans to build a coal mine on the grounds it would worsen climate change.

Chief Justice Brian Preston said a planned open cut coal mine in a scenic part of New South Wales state would be in “the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The ruling by the New South Wales Land and Environment Court was notable for citing not only local impacts of building the Gloucester Resources mine, but also secondary “climate change impacts” of the eventual use of the coal.  “It matters not that this aggregate of the Project’s GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions may represent a small fraction of the global total of GHG emissions,” the justice said.

“Not every natural resource needs to be exploited.”

The case was unusual in referring to the 2015 Paris Agreement and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and calling climate scientists to testify.