Eight Australian students filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday against the Australian Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley in an effort to “protect young people from the climate change impacts” of an Australian coal mine.

The lawsuit comes ahead of the minister’s expected decision on whether to approve the development of a proposed open-cut coal mine, the Vickery Extension Coal Project, in northern New South Wales. The mine first received government approval in 2014. Now, the mine’s parent company seeks to “substantially increase the amount and rate of coal extraction permitted over the life of the mine.”

The students, all under 18, come from all across Australia and are under litigation guardianship. They assert that human activity has contributed to “extraordinary rates of increase in CO2 concentration and [global] surface temperatures” and will “harm—with increasing regularity, scope and intensity—humans and non-human beings, species and ecosystems, and will eventually destroy the life-sustaining systems of the biosphere that support human life.”

The students argue that “unless the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, coal in particular, is constrained, [those] extraordinary rates of increase will continue to rise.” They allege that Minister Ley, in her official capacity, “has a duty to protect young people from the devastating impacts of climate change and that allowing [the project] to be built would breach that duty.” The students seek an injunction to prevent the minister from approving the mine.

A release from Equity Generation Lawyers, the Melbourne-based climate change group representing the students, comments that “if approved, the coal burned from the Vickery Extension Project will result in 370 million tonnes of carbon emissions over the next 25 years, further fueling the climate crisis.” Emphasizing the effects of coal, the lawsuit states that, as a result of burning coal, “CO2 is emitted into Earth’s atmosphere, where a substantial portion of it persists for [over] 1,000 years. About 1/3 of present global CO2 emissions are caused by burning coal.”

Australia remains one of the world’s largest producers of coal. According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, the country’s “total domestic production has more than doubled since the early 1990s, and export volumes have grown strongly.” This action comes less than two months after a 23-year-old Australian law student filed a lawsuit against the federal government for failing to disclose climate change-related risks to investors in government bonds.