Please accept this personal submission on the Covid-19 RMA fast-track consenting bill.

Since 2009 I have made 25 evidence-based submissions copied to all Members of Parliament on an existential threat to future human civilisation represented by human-induced climate disruption. These submissions contained 94,089 words that regrettably were almost completely disregarded by MPs – other than (occasional) polite acknowledgements of receipt.

I based these 25 submissions on my previous work experience that has included:
– a PhD in atmospheric physics (VUW, 1968);
– as a DSIR scientist;
– as a secretariat member of the former NZ Commission For the Future reporting on various future contingencies including climate disaster (1982);
– as a former health science senior tutor at the Central Institute of Technology.

Recent climate modelling suggests that planet Earth’s climate is substantially more sensitive to human-induced carbon emissions than previously believed.

According to this modelling, climate sensitivity – the amount of warming projected from a doubling of CO2 levels from preindustrial 280 parts per million – shows a potential upward shift from 30C to 50C. This revised projection has shocked many veteran climate scientists previously accustomed to a lesser climate sensitivity of around 30C since the 1980s.

The modelling results from more than 20 institutions are being compiled for the sixth assessment report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) due to be released in 2021.

Previous IPCC reports have tended to assume that atmospheric clouds have a neutral effect on the Earth’s climate because warming and cooling feedbacks would tend to cancel each other out. However over the past year, evidence is growing that the net effect of clouds will be a warming effect, based on finer resolution computer modelling and more advanced cloud microphysics.

While acknowledging continued uncertainty, many climate scientists are increasingly acknowledging that modelling may be underestimating the threat of human-induced climate change by not fully taking into account various tipping points within the Earth’s biosphere.

According to Johan Rockstrom, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, “the more we learn, the more fragile the Earth’s climate system seems to be and the faster we need to move. It gives even stronger argument to step out of this Covid-19 crisis and move full speed towards decarbonising the economy.”

Suggested further reading:     Jonathan Watts in The Guardian, 13 June 2020

Conclusion

My conclusion, taking into account Johan Rockstrom’s conclusion above, is that the proposed Covid-19 RMA fast-track consenting bill is an inadequate response to the absolute imperative to rapidly decarbonise the New Zealand economy.

The Covid-19 pandemic is undoubtedly causing grief for many New Zealanders through its effects on public health and the New Zealand economy (unemployment etc). It does not, however, represent an existential threat to future human civilisation that human-induced climate disruption clearly does.

Accordingly I suggest that the Government through the proposed Covid-19 RMA fast-track consenting bill use the opportunity provided by the Covid-19 pandemic to expedite the decarbonisation of the New Zealand economy.

I recognise that the construction of bike and walking trails etc are consistent with this goal but are very small steps. The proposed expansion of SH1 to ‘increase capacity’ however is inconsistent with decarbonisation.

In summary, my view is that the proposed Covid-19 RMA fast-track consenting bill is a missed opportunity to rapidly decarbonise the New Zealand economy.

Yours sincerely

Dr George Preddey

george.preddey@xtra.co.nz

The post Guest Post from Dr. George Preddey, Physicist appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

It is our hope that locals, environmental groups, researchers and activists will find this information useful and empowering.

For ease of use, we have provided the data in Excel files, sorted by the name of the consent holder wherever possible.

Where the consent holder’s name is unavailable, we have sorted the spreadsheets by the relevant “Linz Owner”, that being the first name reported by the LINZ online database for that address.

Consents that have neither a Holder nor a LINZ name are, presumably, located on public land. If you have more or better information, please let us know!

The files have been zipped into separate North Island and South Island archives; just click to download below:

North_Island

South_Island

If you have difficulty unzipping the folders, here is a link to a free unzip app for both Mac and Windows platforms.

Documentation is provided in the PDF below:

DTA_Documentation

We welcome your comments, questions and, in particular, corrections and updates – please email them to:

cana@taylored.co.nz

The post Nationwide Emissions database appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

• Already know you want to help? Find out how in our Mokau South submission guide (Word | PDF)

Some people have said they don’t have time to make a long submission – and that’s fair enough, as we know how busy people are! Your submission doesn’t have to be long, but we think its is important to meet the formal requirements laid out in the submission guide. And here’s why.

Climate Change, the RMA, and Grounds for Submissions

The applicant, Mokau South Resources, was unhappy at the idea that their resource consent application might be publicly notified. They asked why this was being done, and Waikato Regional Council’s scanned response is very revealing of both the scale of the project and the applicants’ attitude:

So there we have it: the project is massive, in an environmentally sensitive area, in a river catchment with high annual rainfall, and the applicants want to avoid a fight on climate change grounds!

Unfortunately, on this last point, the Resource Management Act as it is currently worded is with the applicant: it explicitly excludes consideration of the effects of a project on climate change. A movement is underway to put climate change back in the RMA, but in the meantime, a submission that only mentions climate change can be “struck out for disclosing no relevant case”. That’s appalling, but it’s the law.

(However, some arguments related to climate change can still be made – our submission guide explains how to do that.)

So that’s why we encourage submitters to put in a submission that can’t be struck out, because it refers to the many, many other environmental and economic grounds on which the project is a bad idea. Our submission guide (Word | PDF) provides you with plenty of talking points. Pick one or pick just a few, and make your submission as brief as you like: but please do submit. And once you’ve included grounds that ensure your submission can’t be struck out, we encourage you to state clearly which this project is a terrible idea on climate change grounds.

Mordor on the Mokau

Finally, this Radio New Zealand story provides more information about the applicants and their proposal. It makes them sound like a couple of dear old duffers pursuing their lifelong dream. It’s just a pity that their lifelong dream involves ruining an important natural environment and trashing the world’s climate.

The post Don’t Take Our Word For How Bad Mokau South Is – Take Waikato Regional Council’s Word. And Submit By Next Tuesday. appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Today there was no elephant, despite the need for two. It just shows how hard it is for unpaid voluntary activists to be there all the time at a hearing like this – an hour’s drive from where most anti-coal people live, during working hours. No-one was available today to be the elephant. Most were preparing to give their submissions.

It was also child care time. Our own Marisa, pregnant with her twins, had her pre-school son there and was diverting him with his own video screen and an apple and frequent trips outside, at the same time as trying to record our submitters and witnesses.

(Here’s a request from Marisa: If you’re on Facebook, please Like the climate elephant!)

Fonterra’s lawyers had no such constraints – on well paid time, transport and meals funded, children, if they have any, being cared for elsewhere. Such is the unequal battle for the environment.

Some interesting issues that arose include: can a financial agreement with an affected person absolve the firm from meeting standards for dust pollution at that person’s home? What about if they sell it? What about people who visit? that issue is flagged to come back on the table for discussion.

There is no baseline data for the state of the environment before the coal mine. They propose to monitor levels of dust and noise but how can we know what is caused by the mine if there is no date from before? They propose to monitor for a month before, to establish such data. This is a nonsense. We need at least a couple of years’ data to see what happens in every weather and season.

All this of course would be unnecessary if we looked a little wider and adopted a renewable fuel technology that leaves the coal in the hole and uses a fuel that is renewable and clean and currently being wasted. That is the substance of CANA’s submission today. The first part is just legal argument that our concerns are relevant. the second part outlines an alternative scenario to avoid the mine.

Our witness John Gifford gave it weight with his experience and knowledge:

• CANA oral submission (PDF)
• John Gifford oral presentation (PDF)

We were not prevented from presenting this, but the chair has said he thinks it is not relevant and will give it little or no weight. The legal argument is designed to make him think again about this.

The hearing adjourned at lunchtime and reconvenes again tomorrow at 9am

The post The Unequal Battle for the Environment: Update On Mangatawhiri Hearings, 3 September appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Wednesday 12 June
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mining consent expired for Happy Valley

The Biodiversity Defence Society is filing declaration proceedings with the Environment Court today, arguing that Solid Energy no longer holds resource consents for its Cypress Mine. The resource consents for the mine – gained in 2005 – were due to expire at the end of 2012 if mining activity had not begun.

“Happy Valley is still intact,” said BDS spokesperson Helen Tulett, “While a road has been built in, the company has not begun blasting a mine pit, removing overburden and extracting coal. Mining activity has not begun and that means the consents are no longer valid. We’re asking the court to confirm that.”

“This mine should never have been given consent,” she added. “And we believe that if the company applied again today, consent would not be granted. In the last seven years, tools for assessing biodiversity significance have advanced considerably. Threat status for some species has changed. Biodiversity offsetting criteria have been developed. The need to act on climate change has increased – even Solid Energy’s former chairman has admitted that there is no future in fossil fuels.”

“Happy Valley’s outstanding and fragile natural environment is not being judged against today’s rules, but those from nearly a decade ago.”

Solid Energy’s planned Cypress Mine in Happy Valley has been the subject of nationwide protests, and the site of a three-year occupation camp. The area is part of the unique and threatened Buller Coal Measure Ecosystem, which includes the Stockton and Denniston plateaux.

For more information contact BDS spokesperson Helen Tulett on 0272593388 or helloon@gmail.com

Notes:

1. The Happy Valley resource consent conditions are available at http://www.solidenergy.co.nz/coal/operations/assets/cypress-environment-court-conditions.pdf.
The consent lapsing period is given at A5 as seven years.

2. A map of the area and recent photographs are available on request.

3. The Happy Valley area is situated at the head of the Waimangaroa Valley on the Stockton Plateau.

Happy Valley is home to threatened native species including: great spotted kiwi, South Island kaka, kakariki, Powelliphanta patrickensis, western weka, western long tailed bat, and the South Island fern bird.

Many other endemic species also live here, including: New Zealand robin, tomtit, red tussock, pygmy pine (the world’s smallest conifer), pink pine, southern rata, and numerous rare mosses and lichens.

4. Solid Energy are quoted as advising a contractor that it was delaying the Cypress Mine Project in October 2012. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10837929

5. The Biodiversity Defence Society has previously submitted against resource consents for Solid Energy’s next planned mine, Mt William North, which would be next to Happy Valley. Solid Energy also has plans to continue a line of mines, after Happy Valley, down the Waimangaroa Valley towards the Denniston Plateau.

The post Biodiversity Defence Society Inc. Press Release: Mining Consent Expired For Happy Valley appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Sharon McGarry did not save the day. Mt William stands in line as the next mountaintop removal on the Stockton plateau. It’s the sequel to a very sad story of ignorance, intimidation and elephants; my experience opposing Solid Energy’s proposal for a new open cast coal mine on 243 hectares of Mt William on the Stockton plateau, just beyond the famous Happy Valley. It’s also a lesson to me as a first time submitter at a council RMA hearing; our legal system is wearing a blindfold.

The three independent commissioners, like three blind mice, including Sharon, who presumably still thinks carbon dioxide makes holes in the ozone layer (see The Mt William North Hearings: Ignorance, Intimidation and Elephants), have given Solid Energy the green light to take the top off Mt William (“top down” mining, they call it).

And, even though the local tangata whenua consider Mt William to be of cultural significance, mountains being their gateway to the atua (gods), Dr Ruth Bartlett, Solid Energy’s Manager of Consents and Planning, has an excellent working relationship with them so it’s ok to take their mountain away. Afterwards Solid Energy will erect a serpentine rock pou, with carved inscription, to commemorate what they’ve lost. No worries. (1)

Oh, and landscape architect Frank Boffa says that, from a distance, you will sort of see what it used to be like – a hump here, a hollow there – you know, like the ridgeline that was built up over millennia? (2) Albeit at a lower altitude you understand. Jolly good of them, don’t you think? Ruth said we don’t want anything too jagged left at Mt William anyway because the surrounding area will be low – that’s because anything greater than a sixteen degree angle up on the plateau, post mining, will be washed away by the six metre per annum rainfall – and it’s better to be in keeping with the (new) existing surroundings. (3) Anyway, they need the coal from underneath the jagged bit too.

Of course, those unique sandstone pavements, 34.4 hectares’ worth, will have to go. But oh well, there are offsets, mitigations and compensations and it all comes out in the wash to a Target Final Landform Plan, and what with some predator control for a few years in a completely different area, hey presto! A nice net biodiversity gain all round! I don’t know; the things you can do with ‘science’ these days.

Anyway, not many people go there, which in Frank’s eyes could be an argument to diminish the area’s importance. (4)

Then there’s the compelling economic argument for blasting the top off Mt William: 17 jobs and two further years of mining.

Used to be impossible to move mountains.

We mustn’t forget the wider economic benefits to the region; the two-speed economy for instance, part of the ‘boom’ portion in a mining town’s inevitable boom-and-bust cycle. House prices are rocketing in Westport. Great for some, very bad for those who don’t earn miners’ salaries to cover rent or mortgage payments.

Now, how did those commissioners make their difficult decision? On the one hand: irreversible destruction of 243 hectares of a near pristine environment, habitat for up to 59 great spotted kiwi (Apteryx haastii – threatened), land snails (Powelliphanta patrickensis – threatened) – which are site specific, so that each small region has its own snail subspecies – West Coast green geckos (Naultinus tuberculatus – declining), South Island kaka (nationally endangered), Western weka (at risk – declining), South Island fernbird (at risk – declining), NZ pipit (at risk – declining), South Island rifleman (at risk – declining), the low-growing woody subshrub Dracophyllum densum (declining), the endemic coal-measures tussock Chionochloa juncea (declining), and Parkinson’s rātā (Metrosideros parkinsonii) – mustn’t forget the eventual discharge of around 13 million tonnes of climate warming carbon dioxide into the world’s atmosphere. On the other hand: two more years of mining and 17 jobs for some lucky 12-hours-a-day, 7-day-on, 7-off drivers. Tough choice!

Mining Mt William may not be the final blow to the declining and endangered species that live there, and those 13 million tonnes of CO2 may or may not initiate runaway climate change, but in the words of expert chemist Bob Cunningham, who kindly provided me with information about ocean acidification which the commissioners refused to let me read out at the hearing: “…it is from small beginnings that momentous occasions result.” The way mice nibble away at your cheese.

It must be easier to make such choices whilst blindfolded. During the hearing, Climate Change, our gorgeous dreadlocked elephant, sat politely in the front row of the Westport Bridge Club while submitters spoke on his behalf. Sharon would not have recognised him anyway, but the other two commissioners, even had they noticed his pink floppy ears and sad round eyes, were not allowed to acknowledge him, not even to cast a cursory glance his way.

That’s because he has been banished by the Environment Court. Climate Change, the most important environmental issue facing the world today, banished by our own Environment Court and called irrelevant by the coal miners’ legal representative, Chapman Tripp.

The lawyers told local governments not to worry their heads over Climate Change. Leave it to them, they say, to that legal piece of national weasel wizardry, loved by all big fossil fuel emitters: the Emissions Trading Scheme. The ETS works wonders for Solid Energy – we, the taxpayers, subsidise 90% of their NZ emissions and anything exported doesn’t count. They get to pollute our atmosphere for next to nothing!

There it is; a sad story of three blind mice, one elephant, and a mountain.

Notes

(1) See http://www.wcrc.govt.nz/mtwilliam/hearing.html: Ruth Bartlett – Consultation
(2) See http://www.wcrc.govt.nz/mtwilliam/application.html – 13: Landscape
(3) See http://www.wcrc.govt.nz/mtwilliam/hearing.html: Ruth Bartlett – Consultation
(4) See http://www.wcrc.govt.nz/mtwilliam/hearing.html: Frank Boffa – Landscape

The post Mt William North: Sharon McGarry Did Not Save The Day appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Today the legal system in NZ has confirmed once again that it cannot see me. West Coast regional council commissioners have given the go-ahead to a new coal mine at Mt William. I sat in the room while they heard all the evidence. I was by far the largest creature in the room, as I always am when they talk about coal mining, but it seems they just couldn’t see me.

My name is climate change. My existence has been known for many years and I am recognised in government legislation, and big international conferences have been held about me for 20 years, but in NZ when it comes to coal mining, the biggest cause of climate change, I am not allowed to speak. My friends spoke eloquently on my behalf but their evidence was dismissed.

I will be there whenever decisions are made about me, challenging the blind. But be warned: elephants never forget, and are known to rampage.

Follow the appearances of the Climate Elephant on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheClimateElephant

The post The Climate Elephant Is Here appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.