Australian Coal Association Australia's grid-connected electricity (brown coal around 24%) and is vital for major industries such as steel making and cement manufacture. On 23 August 2013, the Australian Coal Association released a statement that it will be subsumed into the Minerals Council of Australia. The Australian Coal Association acknowledges that 34 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions come from burning black and brown coal, primarily for the generation of electricity, but also for steel-making and cement manufacture. In 2003, the coal industry established the COAL21 initiative, bringing together the coal and electric power industries, unions, federal and state governments, and research
Brown coal mining limits in North Bohemia on other foundations than only coal and coal-fired power generation is above all realistic and realisable. We'd also like to discuss the issue of employment with the Prime Minister. It would be good for him to hear that annulling the limits would not bring about a positive impact on employment in the region, but rather the contrary." The mayor of Litvínov, Milan Štovíček, called Rusnok's statement a “dirty trick” played on the population of the Usti region. “I personally see it as the biggest scam on the people since 1989. This is what only totalitarian governments allowed in the past