Summary/Abstract
This Independent Expert Report of Dr. Karl Mallon was solicited by an Australian Federal Court in the case Sharma v. Minister for the Environment. In this report, the Court asks Dr. Mallon to assess the foreseeable future impacts of a new coal mine in Australia on people in Australia between the ages of zero and 18 in the year 2020.
The author bases his opinion “on a set of Global Circulation Models which in [the author’s] opinion best accord with the matter being considered, namely a policy context which allows for expanding coal mine numbers and therefore significant increased coal exploitation beyond existing mines.” The author, using the “Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5) model” of emissions trends, attempts to quantify the potential impacts of climate change “where possible into financial harm and physical harm,” and assesses “losses of family wealth in housing, losses of income due to worker productivity and economic impairment, and the health impact of increased heat-stress.” Based on these factors, the author’s “constrained estimate of financial impacts due to the chosen climate change scenario is that today’s children will each forego between $125,000 and $245,000, with a best estimate of about $170,000 in lost income (in today’s dollars) through the specific impacts of revaluation of hazard exposed property, heat related productivity losses, supply chain disruption and agricultural output impairment.”
The underlying case, Sharma v. Minister for the Environment, arose when, on September 8, 2020, eight young people filed a putative class action in Australia’s Federal Court to block a coal project. The lawsuit sought an injunction to stop the Australian Government from approving an extension of the Whitehaven Vickery coal mine. For more information about this case, visit the Sabin Center’s Climate Litigation Database.
Note: This climate attribution research was presented in the context of a contested legal proceeding. Different countries, courts, and legal forums may have different standards for expert testimony, and may conduct fact-finding based on legal standards of proof that differ from those applied in academic publishing. Readers should independently investigate and understand the bases for the assertions made in this document before applying this research in other contexts.