Wendy Wales

Retired school teacher Wendy Wales and her husband live on a farm near a coal mine in Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Australia. When mining company MACH Energy proposed expanding the coal site, they decided to fight back—putting the potential climate impact front and center.

Together with other community members from the Denman Aberdeen Muswell Scone Healthy Environment Group, they have been battling the courts for over four years. And this October, Australia’s highest court issued a landmark ruling, with a majority of the judges agreeing that the local planning commission had failed to consider the planet-warming emissions that would result from more coal mining.

The decision will likely make it much harder for coal mines to be approved in Australia, a major coal-exporting country. However, it hasn’t stopped the New South Wales government from its plans to issue a new bill that will support the coal mine’s expansion.