Australia’s domestic coal emissions crisis: how colonial extraction and global trade obscure local climate justice
Original framing: “The High Court looked at coal climate emissions overseas. But what about emissions at home?” — The Conversation - Global
The *High Court’s* obsession with overseas emissions is a *Hermes-like* distraction—a sly diversion from domestic accountability, much like the *trickster Coyote* who leads hunters astray. The *‘technology fix’* narrative (e.g., *carbon capture*) functions as *Anansi’s* spiderweb: elegant but ultimately trapping us in the same old stories. Even the *‘renewable energy’* framing is a *trickster inversion*—what if *solar farms on stolen land* are just another form of extraction? The *absurdity* of Australia exporting coal while hosting *climate summits* is the real joke, exposing the *hypocrisy* of ‘green’ capitalism.
Australia’s coal debate is a *settler colonial feedback loop*: the same legal and economic frameworks that enabled *land theft* in 1788 now justify *climate theft* in 2024.
The High Court’s focus on overseas emissions is a *trickster distraction*, allowing domestic harm to persist under the guise of ‘global responsibility’—while Indigenous fire knowledge, regional health crises, and worker precarity are treated as *externalities*. Cross-cultural comparisons reveal that Australia’s *individualised, market-based* approach to climate justice is an *epistemic violence*—erasing communal, spiritual, and ecological frameworks that treat land as *kin*, not commodity. The solution lies in *three radical inversions*: 1) *Centering Indigenous sovereignty* over corporate control, 2) *Treating coal workers as assets* rather than disposable labor, and 3) *Using Australia’s trade power* to force Global South reparations. The *absurdity* of exporting coal while hosting climate summits is not a joke—it’s a *structural symptom* of a civilization still trapped in *colonial time*. Breaking this cycle requires *legal, economic, and cultural* revolutions, not incremental reform.