In the expansion of infrastructure and development to sustain the coal industry, local interests and concerns with the effects of this expansion tend to be seen as being less important than corporate, state and economic interests. The expansion of the coal industry will have significant environmental, social and economic impacts on these regions, particularly those in which the mining industry is in an exploratory phase and is yet to be developed. Increasingly, however, such expansion occurs with little to no regard for the concerns and issues of directly affected citizens, who are regarded as secondary, incidental or even irrelevant.

In Queensland, which is the largest coal exporting state in the largest coal exporting country in the world, the issues associated with the expansion of the coal industry, and its associated climate change impacts, are particularly pronounced.

Creating spaces for dialogue and discussion around the futures of coal affected and coal dependent regions is critical to the just and equitable transition to clean energy futures.

The Coal Communities Listening Tour is an engagement and consultation project with members of coal dependant and affected communities to ground future campaigning on coal expansion in a thorough and robust knowledge of the concerns, issues and needs of the these communities.

Above all, this project starts with listening.

A team of researchers and students from Six Degrees, Friends of the Earth Brisbane, Griffith University and the University of Queensland has initiated this project to redress this imbalance – an attempt to genuinely bridge the gap between government, business, climate campaigners and community by listening to the issues and concerns of affected community stakeholders, without judgment or debate.

Through this project, a series of Listening Posts in a variety of public spaces in selected coal affected regions of Queensland will be established over a period of two weeks.Each of the Listening Posts will be staffed by trained volunteers who will actively listen to residents’ ideas, concerns, feelings and perspectives.

This is the first major project of Six Degrees – a campaign initiative of Friends of the Earth that seeks to reduce dependence on the Queensland Coal Industry as part of meaningful action to address climate change. In addition to providing a voice in the climate change debate for communities affected by coal expansion, the findings from the listening project will be used as a basis for the development of a suite of campaign tools for Six Degrees.

A series of reports will be published on the basis of the findings, and made available to respondents, stakeholder groups and local residents, as well as formally submitted to relevant state and local governments, coal companies and research organisations working in the coal regions of Queensland.

These reports will detail the key findings of the listening project. In this way, these individuals and organisations will get a more thorough understanding of the attitudes and perspectives, and the hopes and concerns of the local community regarding climate change, and proposed coal infrastructure development, and will be better equipped to respond accordingly.