Global faith leaders urge Adani to protect our common home, abandon Carmichael mine

Dear Mr Adani
We write to respectfully appeal to your better self, to conform your business plans in Australia to the urgent challenge of limiting the damage being wrought by global heating. We ask you to abandon your company’s plans to build a coal mine and infrastructure in the Galilee Basin and, instead, strengthen your leadership in the provision of renewable energy.
The consensus among the world’s scientific community is clear, that humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions are destructive of the biosphere and must be reduced rapidly if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The burning of coal is a major source of pollution, and alternative technologies for energy generation are available. The ethical course of action is to abandon all plans for coal projects, and harness these alternatives to scale.
We are most concerned about those who are most vulnerable, today’s younger generations, people living in areas more subject to cyclones, heat-waves, sea-level rise and drought. Poverty exacerbates their vulnerability and are a special concern for people of faith. At some time, all of us will be inescapably subject to the realities of climate disruption. We are also concerned about the spiritual rights of the Indigenous people of the Galilee Basin, the Wangan and Jagalingou, who have been defending their homelands from the Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Project. The Wangan and Jagalingou people are part of the longest continuing civilisation on the planet, and their rights to traditional lands should be respected. For these reasons, people in Australia will not give up their resistance to your plans if you continue.
We all share in the moral responsibility to act, especially those of us who have positions of influence, whether the influence is economic or political. Mr Adani, you have the enormous power of wealth at your disposal. This brings a much greater responsibility to use it to do good for the benefit of the wider community and future generations.
We understand that a major goal of your company is to lift people out of energy poverty in India. Why not lead India into a bright, new future where people in energy poverty are provided with decentralised, cheaper, cleaner means of renewable energy generation?
The Adani company already creates renewable energy projects which are helping build a safer future. We commend you for this work, as a benefit to people at both a local and global level.
However, there is no ethical balance sheet where projects that are detrimental to the environment can be offset by other projects which are environmentally friendly. The proposed Carmichael mine would in itself contribute to worsening climate crisis but, if it also leads to opening other mines in the Galilee Basin, the outcome would be catastrophic.
We have only one earth, one common home. Please consider only projects which would benefit humanity. We urge you to abandon your plans in the Galilee Basin and pursue alternative plans, also profitable, for the generation of renewable energy.