To: Regional Councils, Minister of Energy and Resources Megan Woods, Minister for Environment David Parker, Minister for Climate Change James Shaw

The post Petition: No New Fossil Fuel Permits or Expansions in Aotearoa appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

“Flaring at Mangahewa D, Todd Energy Gas plant, Taranaki” photo by Fiona Clark

The tobacco industry got nervous when people began to question the health impacts of cigarettes in the 1950s. In response, their marketers invented the filter-tipped cigarette, to screen out tar and nicotine and make the cigarette “safer”. The filters did not stop cancer; people just dragged harder or smoked more to get their nicotine fix, and filter-tipped cigarettes have dominated the market ever since.

Today’s fossil fuel industry is like the nervous tobacco industry of the 1950s. They know the burning of coal, oil and gas is speedily nudging our global thermometer to two degrees. Like their tobacco industry pals they have lied, cheated and even paid the same marketers to confuse us into ignoring the warning signs, continue with our fossil fuel addiction and allow them to make more profits.

And Fonterra has it bad. As the second largest user of coal in the country, Fonterra’s addiction keeps New Zealand’s fossil fuel industry thriving.

The fossil fuel spin doctors are marketing gas as the ‘clean’ alternative to dirty coal. Gas is the bridge to a renewable future. Gas provides ‘diversity’ in our forward-looking energy arsenal, according to Energy Minister Simon Bridges.

Gas: the filter-tipped cigarette of fossil fuel industry.

Most of Fonterra’s North Island milk drying plants are gas-fired, and their new plant at Pahiatua and recent expansion at Lichfield will use more. While the rest of us go electric, ride our bikes and turn off the lights Fonterra just keeps pumping it out, helping keep New Zealanders among the highest emitters per capita of greenhouse gases in the world.

But two problems present themselves to the proponents of coal, oil and gas. The first: a growing awareness, translating into action against fossil fuel expansion worldwide and a fast expanding global divestment movement. The second: facts.

As the Green Party explained in their campaign to prevent Nova Energy’s plans for new, fossil fuelled electricity in the Waikato, “Gas ain’t Green”. True, gas emits around half as much carbon dioxide as coal. This is useful for the oil companies who can virtuously call for a worldwide price on carbon to help wipe out that dirty old coal, give oil and gas the competitive advantage and allow them to continue plugging their filter-tipped climate-destroying product; ‘clean’ natural gas.

And burning gas emits about 75 per cent as much carbon dioxide as crude oil, slowing the climate damage by one year in every four.

But carbon dioxide emissions are only part of the gas problem. Natural gas only emits carbon dioxide after it is burned. Before it’s burned it is mostly methane, and methane leaks. Right now methane appears to be playing a big and immediate part in destroying our climate.

The industry’s ‘Gas is Green’ Iogo comes at a really bad time. At current rates we’ll have two degrees’ worth of human-caused greenhouse gases in our atmosphere as soon as the 2030s. Just when the next twenty years really matter, we’re sending more and more of the most potent greenhouse gas we can get our hands on into the rapidly warming atmosphere.

Methane is 86 times more potent than CO2 over a twenty year period. Yes, it stays in the atmosphere for less time, but it’s the short term that counts if we are to avoid reaching the global warming tipping point described by Dr James Hansen and others, where feedback effects like arctic methane release will just keep the temperature going up irretrievably. Result? Ocean fish stock collapse, Amazon jungle die-off, many metres of sea level rise and more.

The US fracking revolution is not a bridge to clean energy. New research from Harvard shows that between 2002 and 2014 methane leakage from gas production and delivery in the US rose by up to 30%. Gas is delaying the urgent deployment of resources into renewable technologies, leaking dangerous methane into the atmosphere and, scientists confirm, may actually be exacerbating the climate problem.

Let’s not make the same mistake in Aotearoa. While the atmosphere has no borders we can at least learn from the mistakes made in the US and not add to them. There are 2,600 kilometres of high-pressure natural gas transmission pipelines in the North Island (none in the south), including the 307 km Maui pipeline that carries 78% of all of New Zealand’s natural gas. There are also many low pressure pipelines distributing gas to households and businesses like Fonterra. We don’t measure methane leakage here, but take a trip through back country Taranaki and sniff the air; it ain’t all cow shit out there.

Many studies besides the Harvard one find that even a very small amount of methane leakage from gas wells and transport systems can have a large climate impact — enough to cancel out any benefit of switching from coal to gas for a very long time.

Fonterra is getting a bad rap over coal. If they try to “green” up their image by switching to even more gas, we will be ready. We don’t buy filter-tipped.

Fonterra: don’t go there. Coal has to go but Gas ain’t Green.

The post Hey Fonterra: Coal Must Go but Gas Ain’t Green appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

I can now add a rider: even if the cruel Mr Burns introduced zero-hours contracts, removed half the typewriters and banned bananas from the workplace, the monkeys would still produce work of better quality than Mokau South Resources’ application to strip-mine the Mokau River catchment for coal.

It beggars belief that, as the world’s hottest year ends and another hot year begins, anyone would even consider opening a new coal mine. It beggars still more belief that an application that fails to meet so many of the requirements of the Resource Management Act would be allowed to get to the point where it will be seriously considered.

But what’s even more incredible is that the Resource Management Act explicitly prevents us challenging fossil fuel projects on the basis of their contribution to climate change – and in case you think we’re having a go at National yet again, that explicit exclusion of climate change from the RMA was a decision by the last Labour Government. Thankfully, there are now moves afoot to remedy this, not least by the RMA’s author.

Even without the use of this key argument, however, there are so many things wrong with Mokau South’s application and their plans that the many people who responded to our call for submissions had plenty of arguments to choose from: such as the complete inadequacy of the applicant’s ecological assessment, their failure to carry the required iwi consultation, and their cavalier attitude to the effects mine effluent can have in a major water catchment.

In its story on Mokau South, Radio New Zealand chose to portray the Sampson brothers, who are behind this application, as dear old duffers who just wanted their lifetime dream of owning their own coal mine to be granted. But that’s not a thing anyone should want on their bucket list. There is nothing cute, funny or touching about people who want to rip apart an area of regenerating native bush and put a major water catchment at risk just so they can have a crack at making climate change even more disastrous.

So thanks to everyone who submitted by the closing date of 2 February. When we know the story with the hearing on this application, we’ll keep you posted. Although the Mokau South resource consent application reads like it was typed by a roomful of monkeys, the threat it poses is serious, and with our friends in groups such as Waikato Climate Action and Climate Justice Taranaki, we’ll be putting in serious work to stop it.

The post Of Monkeys, Mr Burns, Mokau South and the RMA 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.

As NASA has confirmed, 2015 was the hottest year on record. So the idea of starting any new coal mine represents a dangerous disconnection with reality. But sometimes, we come across a proposal that has that whole extra level of insanity.

Many years ago, before the Resource Management Act came into force, Mokau South Resources was granted a mining licence for an area of regenerating native bush on the Panirau Plateau near the Panirau Stream, a tributary of the Mokau River on the North Taranaki Coast. Their current permit expires in 2016.

So now, despite the state of the coal market and the imperative need not to increase greenhouse gas emissions, Mokau South Resources has applied to Waikato Regional Council for resource consent to strip mine a large area near the Panirau Stream. That’s a terrible idea on climate change grounds. It’s also a terrible idea for the natural environment in North Taranaki and the Waikato.

Coal companies around the world are crashing. China’s coal use has declined and the Chinese Government has banned new coal mines. And the Paris Agreement has signalled the end of the fossil fuel era. But here in New Zealand, while the Government tips them a nod and a wink, the coal industry keeps trying to dig up more of the stuff. They must be stopped.

How To Submit

Submissions on this project close on Tuesday 2 February – so you don’t have long. Working with Waikato Climate Action, we’ve prepared a submission guide (Word | PDF) with many different reasons for objecting to this proposal, and we’d like as many people as possible to submit. You’ll find all the details of how to submit in the guide. You can also read the official Waikato Regional Council information on this application.

Let’s send Waikato Regional Council and the coal industry an unambiguous message: no more new coal mines, no more increases in greenhouse gas emissions, and no more destruction of our natural habitat for the sake of private profit.

• Get started on your Mokau South submission now with our downloadable submission guide (Word | PDF)

The post The Coal Industry Wants To Strip Mine The Mokau. Help Us Stop Them. appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.