Rio Tinto pledges $1.5 billion to be 'carbon neutral' by 2050

Mining giant Rio Tinto says it will invest $1.5 billion over five years in initiatives to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its global operations and become carbon-neutral by 2050.

Rio Tinto, Australia's second-largest miner, has
unveiled a $1.5 billion push to reduce emissions.

Matching recent pledges by federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese and national carrier Qantas, the Anglo-Australian miner on Wednesday night became the latest global company to set an ambition for "net zero" emissions by 2050, and unveiled the industry's largest carbon-reduction investment to date.

Read the story from The Age by Nick Toscano  - “Rio Tinto pledges $1.5 billion to be 'carbon neutral' by 2050.”

Climate Change Protest Draws Thousands of Australian Students.

MELBOURNE, Australia — As wildfires raged across the country, a heat wave again threatened the Great Barrier Reef and a mining giant announced it would push ahead with a huge coal project, thousands of students across Australia quit school for the day on Friday to protest government inaction on climate change.

Milou Albrecht, 14, center, speaking to students attending
 a rally for climate change action at the Old Treasury
Building in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday.

The students — ranging in age from 5 to 18 — came from more than 200 schools to demand that the federal government block construction of the Adani Carmichael coal mine, block any new coal or gas projects and require 100 percent renewable energy use by 2030.

“I am here because I am terrified,” Harriet O’Shea Carre, 14, told a crowd of thousands of student marchers outside the Old Treasury Building in Melbourne. Protesters spilled out onto the road with signs saying “civil disobedience requires no permission slip” and “don’t be a fossil fool.”

Read The New York Times story by Livia Albeck-Ripka - “Climate Change Protest Draws Thousands of Australian Students.”

BHP set to leave World Coal Association, threatens Minerals Council withdrawal

Australian mining giant BHP is set to pull out of the World Coal Association and is threatening to leave the Minerals Council of Australia over differences on climate change policy.

BHP Billiton said the World Coal Association
had "narrower activities of benefit to BHP".

The company has published a 22-page report outlining key climate and energy policy differences between it and several of the lobby groups it is a member of.

The review has found material differences between BHP's position and the position of the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA), the US Chamber of Commerce and the World Coal Association (WCA).

BHP said it has reached a preliminary view to exit the WCA, with a final decision due by the end of March.

Read the ABC News by Michael Janda - story - “BHP set to leave World Coal Association, threatens Minerals Council withdrawal.”

Adani mining giant faces financial fraud claims as it bids for Australian coal loan

A global mining giant seeking public funds to develop one of the world’s largest coal mines in Australia has been accused of fraudulently siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars of borrowed money into overseas tax havens.

Men wearing masks of Australian prime minister Malcolm
Turnbull and Adani chairman Gautam Adani protest outside
Parliament House in Canberra. 

Indian conglomerate the Adani Group is expecting a legal decision in the “near future” in connection with allegations it inflated invoices for an electricity project in India to shift huge sums of money into offshore bank accounts.

Details of the alleged 15bn rupee (US$235m) fraud are contained in an Indian customs intelligence notice obtained by the Guardian, excerpts of which are published for the first time here.

The directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) file, compiled in 2014, maps out a complex money trail from India through South Korea and Dubai, and eventually to an offshore company in Mauritius allegedly controlled by Vinod Shantilal Adani, the older brother of the billionaire Adani Group chief executive, Gautam Adani.

Read Michael Safi’s story on The Guardian - “Adani mining giant faces financial fraud claims as it bids for Australian coal loan.”