The Independent Planning Commission’s published reasons for approving the largest coalmine in New South Wales history in the context of mounting death, disaster and despair brought on by global heating reads like a hostage statement.

In its decision, the commission accepts that the extension of the Hunter Valley Operations’ mine for a further 19 years – resulting 809m tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution – will materially worsen global warming. The panel members cite CSIRO’s finding that climate change is having a growing effect on the lives and livelihoods of all Australians and that the severity of that impact “will depend on the speed at which global greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced”. They reject the idea that keeping HVO’s coal in the ground would make no difference to global warming.

Despite all of this, the commission has still found that all of this is “outweighed” by the revenues coalmining makes, its centrality to the Hunter’s regional economy and the livelihoods of 1,500 people.

The commission’s jarring and contradictory statement must be read for what it is: an admission that Australia’s governance systems are failing to meet the crisis of climate change. It is a shocking and unsettling admission because our faith in these systems has been the foundation of advocacy for action on the climate emergency for decades.

We vote, we make submissions, we go to court, we meet our MPs, we compile and present evidence. All of this activity rests on a belief in the systems of government that have now clearly failed to meet their solemn public duty. We must seriously consider what avenue remains available to us to fend off despair.

The commission heard direct, heart-rending testimony from people who are already grappling with the damage and loss brought by the climate crisis, from grandparents in anguish about the lives awaiting the little children they love, from scientists patiently outlining devastating evidence about the mine’s climate change impacts. All of this, they have decided, is less weighty than the economic contribution a rich mining company claims it will make.

The argument presented in favour of approval was economic and short-term.

There is no doubt that refusing the project would have caused immediate hardship for families, businesses and the wider community in Singleton and Muswellbrook. Had the extension been refused, the mine would have closed at the end of this year. More than 1,000 people would have been stood down from their work and local suppliers would have lost business.

The impact of this would be locally severe but it could have been managed. The workforce could have been supported. The region could have been given money and backing to weather that storm. The Hunter has been through such disruption before and come through. The difficult task of supporting it through mine closure is nothing to the task of adapting to catastrophic global heating.

Australia is facing a crisis of confidence in its democratic institutions. It is a crisis brought on by the betrayal of the people by those institutions – and there is no greater betrayal than this failure to face up to the climate emergency and protect the community from its worst consequences.

The crisis will deepen as the effects of global heating assault communities, infrastructure and the natural and economic systems that underpin our society. In the Hunter region, polling commissioned by Lock the Gate has shown that 85% of people have experienced extreme weather in the last five years and 80% of them say they believe climate change is influencing it.

Young people overwhelmingly understand that their governments are failing to stop pollution from coalmining and coal-burning from fuelling the rising heat, the rising prices, the collapsing ecosystems. My conscience is troubled by having encouraged them to engage politely in the public processes that keep failing them.

The approval of the HVO mine continuing is not just another climate failure among many. It is the failure that finally broke my faith in the capacity of public institutions to serve the public interest.