Coal trains and trucks cannot drop freight at major ports in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland this morning after climate activists launched coordinated protests to block key bridges and roads.
Blockade Australia started the action with a woman who dangled herself from a rail bridge near the Kooragang Island terminals at the Port Of Newcastle at 7am, launching protests that followed in Brisbane and Melbourne.
“Blockade Australia is back,” the group said in a social media post, once all three port blocks were enacted.
Suspended in a harness connected to a bridge near the Kooragang Island terminals, the woman at the Port of Newcastle was carrying a large chain and said she will not come down willingly.
About 8.20am, a second woman activist from the group scaled a monopole crossing all highway lanes entering and exiting Brisbane Port.
And just before 9am, a man halted operations in and out of Port of Melbourne, the largest port in Australia, after he attached himself to a monopole over Appleton Road on Coode Island.
As of 9.45am, police had not yet brought down any of the three activists.
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In a statement, the group said today’s action was “part of a coordinated mobilisation in response to Australia’s facilitation of the climate and ecological crisis”.
With the third largest reserves of coal in the world, Australia is the second largest coal exporter in the world.
The Port of Newcastle is viewed as the largest coal port in the world, exporting an estimated 136 million tonnes of coal last year.
The port of Melbourne is the fourth largest container port in the southern hemisphere.
Anti-coal activists from Blockade Australia have shut down coal export operations at Australian ports in previous protests.
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