In allowing coal expansion in the Hunter, Chris Minns is pouring fuel on the climate fire. His decision will come back to hurt us all | Jack Egan

As someone who lost their home in the black summer bushfires, I was buoyed by the high court finding in favour of a small community group in the Hunter Valley earlier this month.

Led by two retired science teachers, Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan, the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group took on a massive coal corporation and won. As a fellow schoolteacher, I felt a particular sense of pride seeing these ordinary Australians act on their care for their community and future generations.

In their four-year fight against MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine in Muswellbrook, they argued it is no longer OK for big mining corporations to dig up coal and bank piles of cash while pretending the climate pollution from burning that coal is someone else’s problem.

The high court agreed that conditions aimed at reducing the climate pollution from burning Australian coal overseas had not been properly considered when the rosily named “Mount Pleasant Optimisation Project” received New South Wales approval.

Mining interests quickly responded to the high court’s decision, saying it was a threat to investment. Well, of course it is. But only to the wrong kind of investment – the kind that brings us all more frequent, worse and very costly climate-driven disasters.

Now, less than two weeks later, the NSW premier, Chris Minns, has announced plans to introduce special legislation that will allow the very same coal company to increase production at Mount Pleasant by nearly a third, bypassing the state’s usual planning approval process and scrutiny by the courts.

Minns says this is necessary to protect 400 jobs. But the mine already has approval to operate until 2032. What message does it send when ordinary Australians fight for years to uphold the law, win in the highest court in the land and then watch our government step in to change the rules?

The premier tells us he has agonised over the environment versus jobs dilemma. Both, he says, are important. I strongly agree. A just transition for workers into new, good, climate-positive jobs is a core principle of thorough climate action.

Two brave, retired science teachers have shown what ordinary Australians can achieve when they act on the science and stand up. The Minns government must look beyond the next election and the demands of powerful fossil fuel lobbyists, search its own conscience and respect the rule of law. Even the big coal corporations need to play by the same rules as the rest of us.

On New Years Eve 2019, my partner Cath and I saw our home go up in flames before being separated. The fearful feeling of not knowing if each other had made it out alive is a memory that will never fully leave us. Nor will the widespread devastation we witnessed across our NSW coastal community.

I knew then that an awful climate future had crashed right through into our present. It was a huge wake-up call. And yet Australian governments have continued to approve new coal and gas mines, pouring more fuel on to the climate fire.

The evidence is clear: Australia and the world already have enough coal, gas and oil in the pipeline to see us through the transition to renewable energy and reach global net zero emissions by 2050. No new or expanded coalmines, or oil and gasfields are needed on that pathway. This has been the view of the authoritative International Energy Agency since 2021. That agency, of which Australia is a member, is technology-neutral and was created back in the 1970s to ensure the reliable supply of fossil fuels. That reliability is still a big part of its remit. Somehow Australian governments have been missing the IEA’s emails.

For Wales and Lonergan, it was hugely stressful spending years taking on a massive coal corporation. But they stepped up, persevered, and they won.

Inspired by people like them, I have joined nine other ordinary Australians in taking our concerns to the United Nations human rights committee. The kernel of our Hard Truths case is that we are asking the United Nations human rights committee to assess whether Australia is breaching our human rights by continuing to approve and support coal and gas exports that fuel dangerous climate change. These are rights that belong to all of us – the right to life, family and home, and the rights of First Nations peoples to protect their Country and culture.

It gives us no joy to complain about our own government. But we have tried everything else and yet continue to see huge coalmine extensions approved and vast new gasfields opened. Their pollution will come back to hurt us all. We need the Australian government to come to their senses and act.

• Jack Egan is a teacher, climate advocate, partner, father and grandfather living on the NSW South Coast. On New Year’s Eve 2019, Jack and his partner Cath lost their home when the Currowan fire tore through their community during the Black Summer bushfires