Right now, coal companies are planning to unlock vast stores of carbon from nine mega coal mines in northeastern Australia.
They intend to ship this coal right over one of the greatest wonders of the natural world -- the Great Barrier Reef -- through a coal port called Abbot Point.
But in order to make this plan work, Abbot Point needs to be expanded... and in order to do that, the project's backers need to secure substantial funding. Most of the world's big funders have said no to the Abbot Point coal port expansion -- except the U.S.' Export-Import Bank.
The Ex-Im Bank is a taxpayer-subsidized government agency, and in 2013 President Obama announced that the Bank would not fund new coal plants abroad.
If it's wrong to finance coal burning, then it's wrong to finance coal extraction. The coal from Australia's new mega-mines needs to stay in the ground.
As Indigenous and local opposition to this carbon bomb grows by the week -- and global investment banks from London to Wall Street distance themselves from it -- it's time for Ex-Im to say no to Abbot Point and no to Australia's coal.