It is perhaps no surprise that our friend Fonterra, as the second biggest coal user in NZ (and a substantial user of gas as well), is among the “dirty dozen” largest users of fraudulent ETS credits identified by the Morgan Foundation in their brilliant piece of research Who’s the Real Cheat Here? Climate Cheats II: The Dozen Dirty Businesses.

What is surprising is that in Zella’s creative graphic below, using figures from that report, Fonterra doesn’t look too bad. It comes tenth in the Morgan list and holds fewer shonky credits than the oil and electricity companies. Fonterra’s 1.2 million units, although still huge, compare favourably with BP’s 6.1 million units.

But Fonterra is worse than they look and here’s why:  

The ETS rules give free credits to “trade exposed” companies whose overseas competitors don’t have to pay any price for their carbon emissions. Fonterra is eligible for free credits equal to 60% of its process emissions.

These credits, worth up to $25 per unit on the international market, are paid out courtesy of the NZ taxpayer. Fonterra was expected to use them in part-payment for their emissions.

But they didn’t. Instead, like many other companies benefitting from this largesse, Fonterra cheated. They sold the credits at full price and bought dirt cheap credits from places like Russia and Ukraine which did not represent actual emissions reductions – in other words, they were fraudulent. They used these junk credits to pay their ETS obligation to the Government.

This was not illegal under the law as it stood, even though the companies and the NZ Government knew the credits were junk. The rest of the world knew and mostly clamped down on the practice a few years ago. New Zealand was the last country to follow. The general public did not know until this year.

And let’s not forget the ‘two-for-one’ policy, where companies in effect only have to buy enough credits to cover half their emissions. So BP, Z Energy or Genesis buy enough to cover just 50% of their emissions, and Fonterra only 20%. The Government has recently announced that the two-for-one policy will be phased out, albeit very slowly.

So not only did Fonterra benefit from free credits covering 60% of its emissions, it made a substantial profit from its pollution by selling these and buying fraudulent ones. The others did too, but the oil and electricity companies didn’t get any free ones to gamble with.

What’s more, most of the emissions from the dairy industry are entirely exempt from the ETS. There is no price on the methane from the cows or the nitrous oxide mainly from soils that together make up about half of NZ’s emissions. So that’s the other reason Fonterra looks better than it is,

Don’t be fooled by the dairy industry’s assertions that we are wrong to call them exempt. They point out that, like everyone else, they do pay for emissions from their transport fuel, on farm diesel and some of their processing energy. But the really big elephant in the room is the methane and nitrous oxide – and right now they’re getting off scot free on those

True carbon accounting would show the dairy industry as by far the biggest contributor to climate change in this country. With concessionary policies like this, it is not surprising that Fonterra has no economic incentive to quit coal, replace with wood waste, and focus on producing quality high value products from less milk rather than bulk commodities. Until government policy changes, it is up to the public and its customers to insist that Fonterra does better.

The post Fonterra Rorts the ETS appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

The decision by ECAN and WDC to allow Fonterra to keep on expanding, adding a new 30-tonne/hour coal-fired boiler to their Studholme milk processing plant near Waimate, reminds me of my Dad’s driving.

When I was a kid we occasionally drove from Wanganui to Lower Hutt to visit cousins. With Dad behind the wheel it was Lower Hutt or Bust. Even a toilet stop required dire ultimatums to get the car to slow.

When Mum was behind the wheel, variables were appraised, the big picture assessed and the agenda adjusted accordingly. More often than not, that meant stops at every vegetable stand, regular side-of-the-road picnics and occasionally, much to Dad’s chagrin, detours to a stream for a quick dip before hitting the road again.

On a hot summer’s day, regular release of seven kids from a stuffy car was a smart move. Mum’s final detour involved a drive up Haywards Hill right on dusk, to behold the wondrous lights of Wellington.

Dad’s unwillingness to veer off the main road reminds me of our current dominant agricultural economic model, stuck on a familiar road with no apparent willingness to assess the big picture.

Fonterra’s new 35 year Studholme permit, for example, takes us beyond the time climate scientists tell us we need to have stopped, globally, all burning of coal, oil and gas.

We should have stopped to assess the big picture way back down the road, but here we are in 2016 approving a plan to plonk another 270,000 cows into South Canterbury/North Otago. These numbers were spelled out to the Commissioners at the Studholme hearing in Waimate by Peter Fraser, CANA’s (Coal Action Network Aotearoa) expert witness.

The big picture goes something like this: Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett under increasing pressure to ratify the Paris Climate agreement; scientists re-adjusting sea level rise predictions way beyond those used in Fonterra’s application (IPCC’s 4th Assessment (2007)); wildfires again ravaging Western USA; heat waves again killing hundreds in South Asia; May breaking yet another “hottest ever” record; and carbon dioxide levels reaching 400 ppm in Antarctica. We could go on, but unlike the Commissioners, you get it.

The two biggest impacts of the new Studholme permit, climate change and dairy expansion, have been disregarded in their decision.

Like Dad, the Commissioners have stuck to The Plan: Growth or Bust. Despite overwhelming numbers of submissions opposing the expansion they chose to ignore the warning signs right outside the Waimate Community Centre window; a countryside already super-saturated with dairy herds and their effluent (15 times more poo per cow than a human), climatic disruption already costing farmers, and global economic uncertainty already affecting our commodity-heavy economy. Car-sickness and toilet stops disregarded.

It was always good news when Mum managed to get Dad to pull over. Our good news is that CANA and others who opposed the Studholme expansion like Wise Response, Action Station and Ora Taiao (Climate and Health Council) have had an effect. Citing strong public opposition Fonterra changed their proposal to one, not two new coal boilers. Under pressure they have admitted the need to transition away from coal and have had to very publically keep up their spin around burning “up to” 20% biomass in the new (coal!) boiler – the most inefficient way to burn biomass.

But despite all this the Commissioners’ attention to the road in front means they’ve ignored the big picture – and the kids in the back seat. What about some fresh air and a stream to wade in? What about their future? Because right now we’re heading to around 4 degrees of warming, and that future isn’t pretty.

Each year, as climate change worsens, opposition to coal and dairy expansion will only grow. Even now it is clear Fonterra’s social licence is eroding fast. Fonterra have been given ten years to act on this proposal and so could, in theory, still be burning coal in 2061. What will that do to New Zealand’s reputation in a post-two degree world?

Dad liked driving, but Mum was really in charge. CANA don’t believe the Studholme expansion will actually go ahead. The commissioners think they’re in the driver’s seat but they are not paying attention. Mother Earth is really in charge.

While I preferred Mum’s driving I will always remember Dad with great fondness. I doubt that future generations will feel the same about those in the driver’s seat today.

The post Fonterra Ignores the Big Picture appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

The decision to let Fonterra build a massive, coal-fired boiler in South Canterbury is a blow for the climate and a sustainable future, and flies in the face of any regard for our grandchildren, Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) said today.

Environment Canterbury and Waimate District Council today gave the go-ahead for Fonterra’s planned 30-tonne/hour coal-fired boiler at its Studholme factory just outside of Waimate.

According to an expert witness for CANA (1), this would have to see an increase in the South Canterbury/North Otago dairy herd of 270,000 cows, in order to provide enough milk to feed the factory.

In May, in the face of what it called “strong opposition,” Fonterra cut its plans back to one boiler instead of two.

“Even one new coal boiler will over-extend the environmental capacity of the area,” said Rosemary Penwarden, a grandmother, of CANA.  “We are extremely disappointed that the Commissioners didn’t take the wider impact of the plant into account in their decision – the region can’t take it.

“We are seeing droughts, our rivers are suffering from over-extraction and pollution, and sea level rise is hitting our shores.   It’s our grandchildren who will be left to deal with the worsening climate impacts of burning more coal.  Green-lighting new coal in 2016 is ridiculous.

“Fonterra is New Zealand’s second-largest coal user;  planning a new coal boiler is a very bad look.  They should instead be looking to replace their coal boilers around the country with wood and biomass burners. Dirty coal is a fuel which may be cheap to buy now, but which will become increasingly expensive as action on climate change starts to hit in the future.”

Many local farmers were opposed to the proposal and, during the hearing, CANA also questioned the rosy economic future for milk powder painted by Fonterra, who predicted the price for milk powder would continue to rise.

Federated Farmers called the boiler a “Death Star of the milk powder industry.”  

In their decision, the Commissioners had a great chance to raise the bar for renewable energy. Instead, they dropped the ball.  Fonterra said it could burn “up to 20 percent” biomass in the boiler.  Under the RMA, the Commissioners would have to take into account “the benefits to be derived from the use and development of renewable energy.”

However, they argued they didn’t have to do this because Fonterra hadn’t stated any minimum amount of biomass, letting the company completely off the hook when they could have set a minimum biomass requirement.

CANA understands that Fonterra has no plans to build this plant any time soon.
“We can only hope that in the interim the company changes its attitude on climate pollution, dumps these plans, and converts the rest of its coal boilers to renewable energy,” said Ms Penwarden.

The post Fonterra coal boiler decision “ridiculous” appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

The Christchurch City Council should drop the two climate deniers it recently appointed to a new panel to re-review a coastal hazards report,  Coal Action Network Aotearoa said today.

Christchurch City Council illustration of sea level rise

As part of its district plan, the council commissioned the engineering firm Tonkin Taylor to estimate the impacts of a sea level rise of around 40cm over the next 50 years, and one metre in 100 years.

After loud local protest from potentially affected residents,  the council has appointed a new panel to conduct a second peer review of the report.  But that panel now has two well-known climate science deniers on it:  Kesten Green and Willem de Lange, whose history of climate denial has been set out on the Hot Topic blog.  

“If Christchurch City Council wants to rely on sound science around its dealings with climate change, it should stick with proper scientists to review its work, not climate deniers,” said Cindy Baxter of Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

“Of course, the Tonkin Taylor report alarmed residents, because climate change IS alarming, especially the issue of sea level rise in New Zealand.  But you don’t deal with it by questioning the science. The Council should drop these two from its panel.

Recent studies around the rate of melting ice in the Antarctic and Arctic are predicting much higher levels than the maximum one metre of sea level rise in the Council report:  it may end up being a very conservative estimate.

“The sooner we realise that fighting the science by using climate deniers is not the way to deal with the threats coming from climate change, the faster we can get on with how we’re going to deal with this issue,” said Cindy Baxter

She noted that other councils have faced similar issues in dealing with coastal threats from climate change, such as the Kapiti District Council, where de Lange was employed by local residents to fight the science.

“This is clearly a situation where Government needs to step in and give proper scientific guidance and a national framework for the entire country, including addressing issues of compensation, instead of leaving local councils to deal with climate deniers and furious local residents,” said Baxter.

The Christchurch City Council case has echoes of a similar situation in North Carolina, where, under pressure from coastal property developers, the State Assembly passed a law forbidding local councils from acting on a sea level rise report.  A new report has now been written, but gives predictions only 30 years out, not 100 years.

Cindy Baxter commented:  “the US is full of climate deniers, brought about through campaigns funded by the fossil fuel industry’s funding of think tanks like the Heartland Institute.  Both the deniers on this new peer review panel have been associated with the Heartland Institute.”

The post Chch council should drop climate deniers from expert review panel appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

What does it mean to be part of a positive, hopeful and world -changing group of motivated people?

My experience of being part of the Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) team and their oral submission presentations at Studholme, near Waimate, was humbling, invigorating, and life changing.

The build-up and hours of submission writing, strategizing as to who from CANA was covering what aspect and counting the number of people from the local community as well as others from further afield who had committed to being there, all added to the anticipation.

Teleconference calls kept the focus on the strategy of presenting factual information to combat the Fonterra’s evidence. Much rejoicing occurred when we heard two experts, economist Peter Fraser and wood boiler engineer Christian Jirkowsky, had agreed to appear as expert witnesses on our behalf.

Fellow CANA member, Zella Downing and I set off after work from Invercargill, arriving in Waimate late at night, having covered a multitude of topics including what we were saying when it came to our oral presentations. We had already heard from CANA member, Rosemary Penwarden about her impressions from the days at the end of the previous week as to how the Commissioners were listening carefully to alternative views, not hurrying submitters, asking searching questions and appearing to be listening.

Rosemary’s emphasis from a personal perspective, expressing her passions, responsibility for future generations and Fonterra’s lack of appreciation of the consequences of their proposal to keep using coal in spite of the impacts on climate change, was challenging for all listeners. Wise Response’s group of expert witnesses was sincerely appreciated, setting the scene for locals to present their evidence with very telling personal experiences.

CANA member Tim Jones raised concerns around the RMA provisions not being met by Fonterra in their plans. He presented by teleconference, making his mark with quick thinking responses to the commissioners’ questions. The picture developed as Jeanette Fitzsimons presented CANA’s arguments, supported by the technical expertise of Peter and Christian. The Commissioners were alert, asked searching questions and sounded keen to know more about the many points CANA made. It took the whole afternoon, so Zella and I offered to present on Thursday morning as otherwise it would have meant a very late session. There was a quiet feeling of elation at the reception of CANA’s arguments and the respect shown to the three presenters.

As the last speaker for the whole hearing I got very emotional, which surprised me. Moral and ethical considerations along with remembering our responsibility for not only people but for every other living organism, was the thrust of my submission. I was quite cheeky and said that on Thursday it had sounded like the decision had already been made regarding granting consents. I was told twice, very forcefully, by the Commission Chair, that no such decision had been made and I could be confident in that – that put me in my place, but I thanked him for informing me of this.

In spite of my initial personal misgivings the team effort paid dividends as each person brought their strengths to the fore to make a mark on Fonterra’s thick skin. The outcomes have been surprising to date with Commissioners asking unexpected questions of Fonterra. Nothing was wasted in our efforts to challenge and unsettle them, which we accomplished with aplomb!

Thank you CANA team – both those who presented as well as those who contributed in many ways in the lead up, with ideas and reflection spaces- you are amazing!

What did I learn? Doing an oral submission is ‘easy peasy’ when you have the support of so many others.

Kia kaha
Jenny Campbell

The post Reflections on my experience at the Fonterra Studholme resource consent hearing appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

That Fonterra has decided to scrap plans to build one of two coal-fired milk driers in South Canterbury is a good start, but the company could take a step further and cancel the entire project, Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) said today.

In response to strong opposition, including from CANA, Fonterra has told Environment Canterbury (1) that it no longer wants to build two coal-fired milk driers at its Studholme expansion outside Waimate in South Canterbury and has scaled plans back to just one.  It has promised that this one plant would be a hybrid that could burn up to 20 per cent biomass instead of just coal, but still hasn’t committed to burning that biomass.

Protest outside a Fonterra distribution plant in Christchurch

“Fonterra has taken us halfway to the right point,” said Coal Action Network’s Cindy Baxter.  “It has heard our opposition, but it hasn’t quite got the full message.  It should cancel the second plant as well.”

“From our calculations, even one new boiler would require around 270,000 more cows (2) in the area to feed the plant, equivalent to plonking a city bigger than Los Angeles into the area, without a sewerage system. This is smaller than our original estimate of a Jakarta-sized footprint, but is still way more than the local environment can cope with.”

Expert witness for CANA at the hearing, dairy economist Peter Fraser noted that Fonterra was still predicting, as it did in its application, an unrealistic continual growth of the dairy sector, and an ongoing rise in the price of milk powder.

“There’s a big question here for Fonterra shareholders:  can they take the economic burden of a massive stranded asset?” he asked.

Aside from the pressure on the local environment from so many more cows, Coal Action Network slammed Fonterra’s plan to ignore submissions calling for the plant to run on wood waste, rather than coal.

“If Fonterra insists on going ahead with this plant, there is no reason why it can’t build a state-of-the-art wood waste boiler,” said Ms Baxter.

“We don’t believe Fonterra has done its homework on the amount of wood waste available; it refused to release its study.   To even think of building a milk boiler that runs on coal in the 21^stcentury, in the wake of the Paris Agreement on climate change, is simply irresponsible.  Fonterra says it ‘aims to’ use the biomass as a way of ‘transitioning out of coal’ which is laughable – one doesn’t transition out of coal by building a brand new coal-fired boiler.”

Coal Action Network Aotearoa called on the Environment Canterbury panel of commissioners to refuse Fonterra’s application.

NOTES AND LINKS 
(1)  Fonterra’s right of reply to ECAN.  Please see the evidence listed underneath the ‘Applicants Evidence’ Tab.

(2)  CANA’s original evidence stated that the two plants would require 1 million extra cows to supply the plant, but this was later found to be incorrect, and revised downard to 556,000 cows. The evidence has been officially corrected: ECAN was advised, and accepted the corrected evidence.  This did not change the “Jakarta-sized footprint” statement.

(3) Click here for CANA’s full evidence 

The post Fonterra scraps plans for one of two coal-fired boilers, but should drop both appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Why would Fonterra spend several million dollars on a process lasting nearly a year, seeking planning consent for a huge new milk drier that it knows will never be built?Perhaps that’s not a lot of money to them – after all, one million is only three months’ salary for their CEO.

Fonterra’s proposed Studholme project, just outside of Waimate in South Canterbury, would see two new spray driers powered by two immense coal boilers – one 65MW, the other 50.

This is the biggest new coal burning project in the country, with the hearing happening just as our Minister for Climate Change is about to travel to New York to sign the Paris agreement where we undertook to reduce our greenhouse emissions a totally inadequate 11% below 1990 levels. (It’s even more inadequate when creative accounting turns this into more like +10%).

Fonterra is already the second biggest coal burner in the country and grew its coal use by 38% between 2008-2013. They pay lip service to climate change but in practice are totally wedded to coal.

This new plant, if it is built and runs at capacity, would produce some 100,000 tonnes a year of greenhouse gas emissions (similar to its Darfield plant), plus the much more global warming potential of the methane and nitrous oxide from nearly half a million new cows that would be required to supply the milk.

But that isn’t the reason the plant will never be built. In New Zealand, increasing greenhouse gas emissions are never a reason for anything the dairy industry or Government does – they just aren’t on the radar.

Coal Action Network (CANA) put a major effort into submissions with two expert witnesses at the hearing in Waimate last week. We argued, supported by dairy economist Peter Fraser, that there is no milk available now to supply this behemoth and that, contrary to Fonterra’s submissions, milk supply is dropping and farmers are shedding cows.

That’s not rocket science, given the price farmers receive for their milk solids has plummeted to $3.90 from a high of $8.40. Fonterra says it expects, supported by no evidence at all, that historical growth of 4-5% a year in South Island milk production will resume soon. It offered no evidence of what sort of price rise would be needed for farmers to add more cows or undertake very expensive land conversion, and no evidence that prices would rise at all.

It fell to CANA to bring the only economic evidence on this to the hearing. Peter Fraser, an economist with experience in Treasury, MAF and several positions in the industry, Peter Fraser argued convincingly that the new driers would need more than half a million new cows to supply the milk to run them at capacity; that his best estimate was that prices would recover to ~$5 +/- $1, and that new dairy farms needing irrigation were not economic at less than $6.50 and, in many cases, much more.

Further, the EU farmers – whose quotas have just been removed – are planning to meet any growth in demand that does occur and the cost structure of intensive dairying in NZ is now higher than theirs. We are no longer the low cost milk producer feeding on grass. If prices do rise substantially, the US is poised to enter the market ahead of us.

(On the other hand if we are wrong and prices do rise and the extra half million plus cows do materialise, we have an unmitigated disaster in Canterbury with the human equivalent of those cows and their water impacts being equivalent to plonking a city the size of Jakarta on the Canterbury plains.)

Peter’s evidence is why I am sure this plant will not be built. So why are we going through this charade?

Even though Fonterra does not have a great reputation for strategic thinking (they are still making low value commodities like milk powder when successful companies are adding value and paying their farmers much more), they have heard Peter’s analysis before and it is hard to believe they are incapable of understanding it.

I can see two possibilities:

1.  Fonterra needs to portray the image of a successful and expanding company to keep investor confidence. Its debts are currently roughly equal to its assets so it is in a parlous financial state. If they do grow milk supply the farmers with new cows will have to buy shares to be able to supply Fonterra, and this will help the company get out of its mess. Perhaps they really think wishing will make it so?

2. In case we are all wrong and milk supply does expand, if they already hold a consent for a processing plant no-one else will try to capture that milk as they couldn’t catch up and build a new plant first. So it may be an anti-competitive move.

Neither of these is a good reason for spending nearly a billion dollars it doesn’t have and going further into debt, for milk that nobody can afford to produce.

Waimate is left expecting jobs and economic development, and so is not pursuing any other strategy. This state of affairs could last ten years before the resource consent would lapse. But the jobs and development will never materialise. This is known in the trade as “planning blight”.

In this case, whether Fonterra run its new factory partly on wood waste is irrelevant. But most of the discussion focussed on that, rather than the lack of milk. That elephant in the room, like climate change, is just too big to be on the radar.

Correction:  this blog has been corrected on 20 April to change the “million cow” figure to “half a million” – see comments by Peter Fraser below. Thanks to George Williams for pointing out the error.  

Further reading:

The media summary of CANA’s evidence to the hearing in Waimate.

All evidence by CANA, CANA members, and experts to the hearing.

The post Fonterra’s coal-fired climate folly appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

An unambiguous message outside the massive Fonterra plant in the small Southland town of Edendale. Great work by Coal Action Murihiku.

On Monday 4 April, as Fonterra launched its bid for resource consent for a massive coal-fired expansion of its Studholme plant in South Canterbury, which if consented and built further worsening greenhouse gas emissions at a critical time for the climate, ordinary New Zealanders up and down the nation took action in their local community. There were many voices, but one message: Fonterra, quit coal.

Fonterra responded with greenwash, claiming that they were on our side, and that their new Studholme boilers would, if built, use 20% biomass. But in fact their resource consent application documents say the boilers would use up to 20% biomass, and admit that “up to 20%” is mostly likely to mean “0%”.

It’s time to stop the spin, Fonterra. Actions speak a whole lot louder than words. You must take real, measurable, progressive steps to get off coal and onto renewable sources of energy.

Outside a Fonterra distribution plant in Christchurch

Outside Fonterra’s Brightwater factory near Nelson

Auckland Coal Action sends the message loud and clear

Outside Fonterra’s flash HQ

Poster placed in an Auckland window

The post From Edendale to Auckland, They Came With One Message: Fonterra, Quit Coal appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Work on the Denniston Plateau has now stopped.

Early in the week Solid Energy announced 24 workers would lose their jobs from the Stockton mine, and by the end of the week Bathurst announced that it is putting the Denniston mine on hold, laying off 12 workers.

Terrible news for those workers and their families.

At the heart of this is the same issue that sent Solid Energy under: plummeting coking coal prices – a price that has continued to fall, and was again cited as the reason for Solid’s new layoffs.

Over on the Denniston Plateau, Bathurst’s woes have stemmed, in the first instance, from the long-signalled closure of the Holcim plant in Westport, its biggest client. Bathurst has had to seek domestic buyers for its high grade coking coal, because of the low international price.

Bathurst has managed to keep Denniston’s head above water because of Holcim. It has kept the rest of its operations afloat due to other domestic customers like Fonterra. No doubt has it hopes pinned on Fonterra’s plans to continue to expand its coal-fired milk drying operations, such as the one at Studholme, near Waimate – plans that must now be in jeopardy, given its financial state. Fonterra is now the second largest user of coal in the country.

Buller District Mayor Garry Howard tried to explain the Stockton layoffs, saying that Solid had to show the company was in profit before the mine goes onto the international market in a couple of months.

Perhaps he needs to look around, firstly over the ditch to Australia, where Anglo American is getting out of both Australia and the coal industry altogether, racking up huge losses in a $5.6 billion write-down. Whether it can actually sell its coking coal mines remains to be seen – as many commentators are saying, it’s a buyer’s market.

The international coal industry is on its knees, especially in the US. Bankruptcies all over the place: the biggest being Arch Coal. Others, like Alpha Resources, have filed for bankruptcy protection. The world’s largest coal company, Peabody Energy, is teetering on the brink.

Yet here in NZ, the Government, mining lobby group Straterra, Mayor Garry Howard and even Labour Leader Andrew Little have all made reassuring words about how the price of coking coal will bounce back, how everyone will need steel, yada yada yada.

The real reason behind job losses on the West Coast: China

It’s actually the hard coking coal price that lies at the heart of the US coal industry’s collapse. And that is driven by a massive downturn in China’s economy, and its use of steel – a downturn that doesn’t look like turning round any time soon.

Early figures (Jan-Feb) released by the Chinese Government over the weekend show steel use has fallen another 6% year on year.

So why do we need more coal mines?

While all these coal layoffs were being announced last week, and the coking coal price continued to slide, I was writing CANA’s submission to the Department of Conservation to oppose an access agreement for a brand new coal mine on the West Coast.

This 109ha opencast mine would be slap bang in the middle of the Westport Water Conservation Area, and touches on the Mt Rochfort Conservation Area, home to the Great Spotted Kiwi, rare geckos – a landscape already designated by DOC as a “Naturally Uncommon Ecosystem.” It’s one of those rare landscapes that it’s the job of the Minister of Conservation to protect (Read the DOC significance report here).

You’ll be able to see this massive blot on the landscape from the lower Buller Gorge, and from downtown Westport (see photo from the DOC submission) – not so great for the Coast’s other main source of income: tourism.

And up on the North Taranaki Coast there’s another open cast coal mine application underway – Mokau South. My colleague Tim Jones has written about it here (submissions are now closed).

The Government has re-written the Crown Minerals Act to make sure the “net economic benefits” of any proposal have to be taken into account when considering any application for a new mine.

Will the various regional councils be able to see through their coal-dusted spectacles and realise that New Zealand doesn’t need any more coal mines? That the coal industry is on its knees, and that the mines we already have can’t find markets, either at home or internationally?

Will they look at the Crown Minerals Act in a different light and discover there will be no “net economic benefits” of new mines, just economic losses to accompany the disastrous environmental destruction and greenhouse gas emissions that result from coal mining?

Bathurst Resources have only mined 50,000 tonnes of coal from the Denniston Mine. That they’ve only destroyed 26ha of the planned 200ha of the mine footprint is a relief. The mine that the company pledged would employ hundreds has turned out to be another false hope, another white elephant.

For anyone to consider opening a new coal mine in Aotearoa in 2016 is just nuts.  

 We say: keep the coal in the hole. Save our precious environment, and stop that coal from ending up in the sky.

The post Amid NZ coal mine closures, layoffs, do we need two new mines? appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

With the world committing at Paris to strive to keep global warming down to 1.5 degrees, the pressure is on Fonterra to stop increasing its coal use and start a gradual phase out. It cannot afford the reputational damage that will result from building its huge new drying plant at Studholme, increasing its coal use to some 600,000 tonne a year.

There is another way that could be more profitable for the company and especially for its farmers, while lightening its environmental footprint. The key is to substitute “value” for “volume”.

On 30 November NZ Farmers’ Weekly ran a big article where they lauded their achievements in energy efficiency, and complained that to get off coal was too big a challenge. We disagree.

See my response in last week’s issue: https://farmersweekly.co.nz/article/energy-challenges?p=24

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