let’s bulldoze this bill into oblivion

Minister Chris Bishop has already said he would listen to the wave of opposition to the Bill, which appears to be coming from all sides, even from independent government watchdogs like the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the Auditor General, both concerned at the extreme power the bill could give to Ministers.

Tim Jones and Tom Powell presented our submission to the Select Committee last Friday (here’s a copy of it – have a read), repeating the issues we are most concerned with: it’s anti democratic, it undermines and ignores Te Tiriti, and would let things like the Te Kuha coal mine get past the consent stage, despite already having been turned down by the likes of the Environment Court.

And on Friday the Ombudsman also weighed in, stating the unchecked ministerial powers could put the country on a “a slippery slope”.

“On the one hand, I can see why speed achieves what’s wanted with a beefing up of executive power, but unless that’s matched by oversight and accountability, then I think democracy itself is the loser.”

Meanwhile, without even having final legislation passed, the government invited companies wanting to be listed in the bill to apply. That deadline was last week. As Dame Anne Salmond pointed out:

“They are behaving as if the select committee process has already been decided, and public concerns about this draft legislation have been dismissed in advance.  That is an insult to tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are writing submissions opposing this bill, and to the select committee process as well.”

So we need to keep up the pressure. Sign up here to join the March for Nature in Tāmaki Makaurau, 1pm on June 8

CAFT
Meanwhile, we’ve been working behind the scenes with a new group called Communities Against the Fast Track, a fantastic group of like-minded organisations.

Check out the latest activity:
We’re challenging the government’s Select Committee process
Providing a guide for the lucky few who are chosen to make an oral submission
Keep an eye on the CAFT website for updates, get on their mailing list and find ways to continue this fight

The post Keeping the pressure up against the fast-track bill: join us on June 8 in the March for Nature appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA), the national organisation campaigning for an end to coal mining and coal use, says Resources Minister Shane Jones needs to understand the world has moved on from the industrial revolution, and coal – and siding with the dinosaurs won’t do his grandchildren any favours.

“While Fonterra’s getting out of coal as fast as possible because its international customers are demanding it, Caveman Shane wants to take us back to the dark ages,” said CANA spokesperson Jenny Campbell.

Te Kuha mine, turned down by the Environment Court but said to be a top pick for the government’s fast-track process. Photo: Neil Silverwood

“Relaxing rules for new coal mines in the face of increasing climate impacts is unlikely  to be something New Zealanders will throw their weight behind. People across the country are still recovering from flood disasters: some from more than a year ago, and some just last week; farmers are suffering from a crippling drought and crying out for rain.

“This Minister, who doesn’t care about killing kiwi and never met a mine he didn’t like, clearly got his riding instructions in his four-hour meeting with mining lobbyists in January. The world has moved on from the 1800’s, here’s a climate crisis to tackle, and he needs to catch up.

“Between this and the fast-track Bill, this Government is showing it’s fast becoming an environmental vandal and climate criminal.”

“The International Energy Agency has been very clear: we don’t need any new coal mines.  And there is no such thing as good coal – whether it comes from Rotowaro or Indonesia, this stuff is a climate killer – and it also kills kids and vulnerable older people through its pollutants.”

CANA questioned who the Minister thought were the customers for all these new coal mines he wants to open.

“Is the Government planning to reverse the planned phaseout of low and medium heat coal boilers by 2037? That would further ruin the environmental reputation of New Zealand businesses in our key overseas markets,” she asked?

“Shane Jones may only care about doing the bidding of the lobbyists and donors whose interests he serves,” concluded Jenny Campbell

“But our children and our country deserve better. They deserve better than a Minister who specialises in aggressive ignorance. They deserve better than a Government that is selling our country off to the miners, the drillers and the despoilers. They deserve better than Shane Jones, and they deserve better than a climate change-fuelled future tied to fossil fuels and failure.”

The post Shane Jones throws a lump of coal to the mining lobbyists appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

This week the government gave the thumbs up for Fonterra to keep burning coal for another 15 years, and for NZ Steel to continue burning it past 2050.

Our biggest polluters are still calling the shots on coal.

Wait. Isn’t it the government’s job to set policy for industry to follow, not the other way around?
Yes. Yet this week, as it released the Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP), there was an opportunity for the government to take meaningful steps toward reducing our reliance on coal.  But it didn’t.

We want to give big ups to those ministry folk who put the 343 page document together. All those words sound encouraging, but they don’t distract us from the reality that our civilisation and all that we hold dear on this planet are at enormous risk from global heating and this document is the government’s first response.

Urgent transformative change is needed. We can’t find that in the ERP.

We can’t even find the word “cow”, not even once. Where is the plan to deal with Fonterra, our biggest polluter? Where is the plan to radically transform agriculture, the cause of half of our entire emissions? Too many cows in inappropriate places like the stony Canterbury Plains have decimated Canterbury’s braided rivers, poisoned the native freshwater creatures, polluted aquifers and put human health at risk.

All of that is absent.

Cut the number of cows and you’ve gone a long way to solving the coal problem too, since 95% of the milk produced in NZ is dried, largely with coal, and exported, mainly by Fonterra. Then Bathurst can get on with moving their workers to meaningful jobs to build, not destroy, a low carbon economy.

But no, Bathurst is planning a new coal mine down south and their biggest customer Fonterra is ready-and-waiting. So much for letting the industry voluntarily phase out of coal. Strong government direction is needed – and that’s missing in the ERP.

Bathurst Resources Ltd (BRL) doesn’t have much of a track record. John Key was present to open its office in Wellington in 2012 – along with hundreds of protestors against its plans to mine the Denniston Plateau. But it’s not even a New Zealand company, after delisting from the NZ stock exchange three years after opening here, supposedly due to the dismally low share price.

Bathurst had to apply to the Overseas Investment Office to expand its Canterbury Coal Mine. The OIO gave it that green light, despite the fact it had breached a raft of consents by already expanding into unconsented territory. That closed last year after a dispute with ECAN over the consents that would have seen protracted legal processes Bathurst clearly couldn’t afford.

An Extinction Rebellion blockade highlighted that it had extracted five times more coal than its consent allowed.

Don’t expect this company to do the right thing for the planet.

As for the farmers, they’re on the front line, acutely affected by the changing climate. Farmers in the Waikato have been suffering from a severe drought – a longer drought than normal, they say. Normally the rain has come in by now, but not this year, one of the hottest and driest summers on record, caused at least in part by climate change.

Those farmers are now getting a handout from the government to support them through this difficult period. Support is needed – most importantly to transition away from the carbon-intensive system that is making the tough times more frequent.

The last thing farmers need is their industry’s refusal to change. But thanks to massive lobbying from the agriculture sector farmers are still excluded from the Emissions Trading Scheme and so have not paid a cent towards the ERP.  No Matter! On the very day the government lets them off the hook for paying the cost of their pollution, it was announced the taxpayer would be footing the bill to help them deal with the impact of climate change. You can’t make this stuff up.

NZ Steel

In another nod to industry the ERP allows NZ Steel to keep burning coal up to 2050 – this despite the push elsewhere towards low carbon steel manufacture and NZ Steel referring to steel-without-coal a “holy grail still at least a decade away”. One decade = 2032, not 2050.

Here are three points about steel:

1. You can make steel without coal, you just need the political will. Sweden’s Hybrit, with help from the EU Innovation Fund, will have commercially available coal-free steel by 2026. Sweden’s high percentage of hydroelectricity makes it a sitter for this kind of innovation – sound familiar? Even NZ Steel’s parent company Bluescope is working on low carbon steel manufacture in Port Kembla, Australia. It’s high time coal industry lobbyists stop denying the obvious (no, the world does not need your West Coast coking coal!) and get on with helping coal workers into much needed jobs to help secure all our futures.
2. The cool thing about steel is its 100% recyclability. We do OK in Aotearoa, recycling around 80% of our steel even though it has to be shipped overseas, but there is so much more that we can do in the recycling department. However, as with so many other manufacturing industries here, government must learn from the industry experts in order to make useful policy choices. For example, due to all sorts of technical reasons including the unique way NZ steel is made using thermal rather than coking coal, it currently makes sense to recycle But with low emissions inserted into company’s bottom line in place of profit we have a new, exciting story to tell. Yes please!
3. Stop using so much steel in construction. It’s been called “the concrete of the future” – Cross laminated Timber (CLT), developed at Canterbury University, is cost competitive to concrete and steel in low rise buildings (up to six stories) . One cubic meter of CLT can absorb one tonne of CO2. What’s stopping us?

Genesis Energy

Genesis is our other biggest coal user. It’s embarrassing that Genesis Energy still uses coal. CANA shamed them into stopping importing Indonesian coal 2014 when coal workers were being laid off down the road at Rotowaro.  Yet today Genesis, a 51% government owned company, is importing record amounts of coal.

We won’t go into the tangled mess behind what is now an electricity system that makes enormous profit off the backs of our forefathers’ publicly built electricity network. But Huntly coal has to go. My friend, currently working on huge wind and solar projects in Australia said our electricity system would be so easy to fix – he means make entirely renewable. In his view we don’t need Lake Onslow. Replace Huntly coal with planned, managed, distributed electricity. However, it looks as though the neoliberal capitalist model is sacrosanct. The market rules. But if we’re serious about the climate emergency a coherent public electricity utility has to be our priority.

Summing Up

A 2037 date to end coal in NZ is not fast enough. It ensures our biggest polluters get to continue dumping millions more tonnes of coal into a choking atmosphere than their fair share. CANA’s proposed date of 2027 to end coal use, instead of the government’s 2037, gives industry plenty of time to ensure that all workers involved in the mining and transport of coal get the training and support to transition into jobs needed for adapting to a climate changed economy – and there are plenty.

CANA’s 2014-15 report Jobs After Coal notes that Coal miners’ transferable skills are essential for helping build the economy we desperately need if we are to survive – like fixing our low lying railway network, building flood defences where possible in our low lying coastal cities, reorganising the way we grow food and so many other areas.

We would love to bring you good news folks! Well, climate change bumped Ukraine off top place in the news last week.

TBH, while the government gives the thumbs up to Fonterra in the ERP we have to give the ERP a great big thumbs down.

Our thumbs up goes to the climate activists who shut down Bathurst’s Takitimu coal mine recently, injecting colour and creativity into the heart of Mordor for an entire day.

Cheers!

Rosemary and the CANA team

The post Our biggest polluters are still calling the shots on coal appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

“Governments around the world are announcing phase-out dates for coal. It’s time New Zealand stopped dragging the chain…”

The post It’s coal’s turn on the ash heap of history appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

“This could spell the end of cheap coal for Fonterra’s Canterbury operations, and should give the company an opportunity to make the switch away from coal, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel,” said Cindy Baxter, a CANA spokesperson.

Fonterra’s Darfield dairy factory has two large, relatively new coal boilers, totalling 75MW, and burns around 90,000 tonnes of coal a year to dry milk powder for export. Last year Coal Action Network, alongside Extinction Rebellion Ōtautahi, blocked the mine to protest the expansion.

CANA and XR Ōtautahi blockade at Bathurst Canterbury Coal mine blockade, September 2020.

“Against the background of the Climate Change Commission recommending the dairy industry gets out of coal by 2037, the closure of this mine provides yet another incentive for Fonterra to dump coal, and make the switch to biomass, but of course the impact on climate change should be incentive enough,” said Baxter.

Bathurst Resources was in the middle of an application to extend the mine, but the application process had reached a sticking point.  It was being extraordinarily recalcitrant with Environment Canterbury over its refusal to accept that it was mining far more coal than it had consent for.  Over the past five years it had been fined for 28 breaches involving runoff into the local stream, threatening the habitat of the endangered Canterbury mudfish.

A Selwyn District Council report showed It had also committed numerous breaches of noise, truck movements, lights at night, dust and mining of more coal than it was allowed. Bathurst disputed this, and was also refusing to provide information to the councils as part of its application.

“One wonders whether the negotiations with ECAN over these breaches and the cost of compliance made the coal too expensive to mine,” said Baxter.

The Overseas Investment Office gave the green light for this Australian company to purchase land for its mine extension, something it should never have done in light of the illegality of its operations there.

“At the end of the day, an end to this coal mine could serve to drive up the price of thermal coal in Aotearoa and, in climate change terms, every closed coal mine is a good coal mine.  Now, we look to Fonterra to dump coal altogether, and make the switch.”

The post Bathurst to close Canterbury Coal Mine: all eyes now on Fonterra appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

New Zealand’s second-largest coal user, Fonterra, and the rest of the dairy industry, will have to shift up a gear in getting out of coal to meet the recommendations by the Climate Change Commission (CCC), Coal Action Network Aotearoa said today,  warning the 2037 date for getting off coal for process heat isn’t ambitious enough.

“The Commissions’s advice that we need to get out of coal in food processing by 2037 will put a rocket under Fonterra, whose weak policy is only to reduce its coal use by 30% by 2030,” said Cindy Baxter of Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

“However, we consider that the 2037 end date for coal in process heat for things like drying milk should be brought forward. The world needs to get out of coal, and for Fonterra to be able to continue burning coal until 2037 is unacceptable.

“We also call on the Government to take up the Commission’s advice that no new coal boilers should be constructed, anywhere, from now on.”

Disappointingly, the Commission doesn’t include a ban on coal mining overall.

“CANA calls for the government to close all coal mines by 2027, and ban new ones – not just on conservation land – and stop the expansion of old mines such as the proposed Bathurst expansion of the Canterbury Coal mine at Coalgate.”

“There would be jobs lost in coal mining, but the Commission points out there is time for the Government to come up with a Just Transition plan, and has set out many ideas that will increase employment, such as the increased use of biomass,” said Baxter.

CANA also welcomed the suggested closure of Huntly coal-fired power station in the 2020’s.
“It’s high time we shut Huntly:  it was scheduled to close in 2018, but so-called “100% renewable” Meridian persuaded Genesis to keep it open to provide backup for dry years, as part of its Tiwai Point deal.”

One main piece of information that CANA was expecting in today’s report was advice for the Government on New Zealand’s current 2030 target (reducing emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030). The CCC only says it should be “much more” than 35%. “This is disappointing.”

CANA is disappointed that the Commission did not model the cost of inaction, and the impact on GDP of climate change.

“Climate change is already hitting Aotearoa, hard. Almost every week we’re seeing record rain, floods, hailstorms, high temperatures and wildfires. Just ask the cherry growers in Central Otago, the fruit growers in Nelson, or the people hit by floods in Napier – or the people at Lake Ohau who’ve lost their homes. And this is just the tip of the iceberg: there are other threats such as the effects on health, disease and pests as our climate becomes more tropical.

“It’s a real shame the Commission’s models didn’t include the expected costs of climate impacts of the three degrees of global warming where we are currently headed for by 2100.  This is the real danger, and it would make a marked difference to their projected increase in GDP under business as usual.”

CANA commends the Climate Change Commission for this substantial and commonsense advice to Government, and looks forward to being part of the conversation going forward.

CONTACT
Cindy Baxter 021 772 661

The post CANA responds to the Climate Change Commission’s draft report appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Land Protectors Stop Coal in its Tracks 

Press release from: 
Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Environmental Justice Ōtepoti and Extinction Rebellion Ōtepot/Ōtautahi/Invercargill

 At 7.30 am this morning “land protectors” disrupted & locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the daily coal train running from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine in Southland to Fonterra’s Clandeboye milk factory in Temuka.

Upwards of ten people are currently locked to the tracks, blocking the train, while others carry flags and banners, and others are on drums.

Today’s action is very personal for Environmental Justice Ōtepoti member Fiona Clements (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha, Clan Gordon) whose whakapapa are to the Takitimu Mountains overlooking Bathurst’s coal mine.

“Ko Takitimu te Mauka, Ko Takitimu te Waka, My whakapapa is on the line, being carted off like carbonised bones, no longer of flesh but stone. This happens on a daily basis past my own home transporting the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel. This undermines Mana whenua and our place here as kaitiaki of Papatūānuku”.

“Takitimu is the waka that brought my tīpuna from Hawaiki, it was turned to stone at Murihiku and now Bathurst desecrates this Whenua daily by carving it out & burning coal in Fonterra’s factories.” Says Clements.

“Fonterra purchases the majority of its’ coal from Bathurst Resources to dry milk powder for export. Fonterra is driving the demand for further coal expansion, desecrating the Whenua. Bathurst’s plan to expand the Southland Takitimu mine for another 30 years, demonstrates Fonterra are deceiving & delaying their supposed plan to phase out coal. If it wasn’t for Fonterra, Bathurst Coal Mines could shut down forever,”  said Coal Action Network’s Michael Dumbar,  a Southland farmer.

Scientists state coal must be phased out worldwide by 2030 in order to keep warming to the agreed Paris Agreement’s warming limit of 1.5 degrees C.

“Last year our Dunedin City Council declared a climate emergency and aims to be net zero emissions by 2030. The emissions from the coal on this train is the same as putting 2,500 extra cars on the road every single day. Bathurst and Fonterra’s coal train makes a mockery of what our city is trying to achieve,” s aid CANA’s Rosemary Penwarden.

“I’m simply doing what my conscience demands” said 79 year old Michael Fay, currently sitting in front of the train on the tracks.

“I’m here for these young people right here on the track beside me. It is morally unacceptable to do nothing while their future is flushed down this very [railway] line.”

The group, a coalition of climate activists have these three demands:

We say to the State, Fonterra & Bathurst Resources that they must be honourable treaty partners & honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi by:
1) Stopping expansion & protecting Te Whenua from further desecration
2) Implementing a just transition from extractive industry by centring mātauranga māori and supporting Tauiwi & Tangata Whenua to thrivewith Papatūānuku.
3) To the Government: You have declared a Climate Emergency. Stop subsidising & investing in the fossil fuel extractive industry. STOP COAL IN ITS TRACKS

More photos

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Bathurst Resource’s planned extension of its Canterbury coal mine, shut down by protesters this morning, is proof that dairy companies like Fonterra are not moving out of coal fast enough, says Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA).

“We stand in solidarity with the Extinction Rebellion protesters who have blocked the Canterbury Coal mine this morning: Fonterra should be ashamed that its failure to shift off coal is the reason Bathurst wants to expand this mine,” said Cindy Baxter, of CANA.

“The developed world must stop using coal by 2030 if we want to keep global warming to 1.5˚C under the Paris Agreement, and this should include Fonterra and the rest of the dairy industry. Fonterra’s our second-largest user of coal, used to dry milk: we wonder if our export markets are aware of the pollution behind this product.”

“Not only should the mine extension not go ahead, but Environment Canterbury should shut it down altogether due to Bathurst’s ongoing and extensive breaches of its consents, described by a Judge as a “systemic failure to comply” when he fined the company for yet another breach in January this year.

Over the three years from 2017-2020, Bathurst has been fined a total of around $38,000 for allowing runoff to flow into a local stream 28 times, a stream that is home to a nationally threatened species, the Canterbury mudfish.

ECAN was supposed to hear Bathurst’s application, but this has been delayed. The company had repeatedly failed to provide the Selwyn District Council with information it had requested in order to fully assess the impact of the expanded mine footprint.

In 2017, the Selwyn District Council discovered, in response to local complaints around an increase in traffic, dust and vehicle movements, that Bathurst was mining more coal than it had consent for, and requested that the company apply for that consent.  In her report, planning consultant Janette Dovey stated:

“I was engaged to process that on behalf of SDC in late February 2018. During that process, it became evident that the increase in heavy vehicle movements was directly related to the increase in the volume of coal being extracted, and that the increased Mine production was not consented, with additional non-compliances being applicable.”

“Bathurst appears to have recognised its inability to operate safely and legally to the extent that its new application to increase the mine is riddled with ‘retrospective’ applications to bring its previous breaches within the law. The company is making a nonsense of the regulatory process and ECAN should shut it down,” said Baxter.

 “It’s 2020 and it’s time Aotearoa got out of coal: this mine going ahead shows Fonterra is a laggard, despite all the nice words and membership of so-called sustainable industry groups.”

The post Fonterra should be ashamed of causing coal mine expansion: CANA supports activists appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

To begin, here is an overview of local issues from Massey University, including the New Zealand index of Social Deprivation.

It should come as no surprise that the Buller coal-mining region is one of the most deprived in the country.

For the big picture, here is a seminal paper from the US on the overall cost to communities of mining, transporting, and burning coal.

NB: Coal prices have collapsed since this paper was published in 2011.  If the costs outweighed the benefits then, the balance must be far worse today.

Here are some useful links from OraTaiao, the New Zealand Climate and Health Council:

Fossil fuels, Climate Change and Health;

The 2017 Royal Society report Human Health Impacts of Climate Change for NZ has a section on outdoor air quality;

More recently, here is a 2019 Lancet report on climate change and health and a 2019 review of air pollution and health from the American College of Chest Physicians.

For those who want to go deeper, there is a large body of relevant scientific evidence from the Appalachian coalfields in the US, where coal is mined by much the same methods, and in similar terrain, as in the Buller.

The following is a list of publications from one researcher, Dr. Michael Hendryx, Professor of Public Health at Indiana University. The titles show the many ways by which coal mining poisons communities and blights children’s lives.

• Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal.
• Unintended consequences of the Clean Air Act: Mortality rates in Appalachian mining communities.
• An examination of the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining on respiratory symptoms and COPD using propensity scores.
• Mortality in Appalachian coal-mining regions: The value of statistical life lost.
• Mortality from heart, respiratory and kidney disease in coal mining areas of Appalachia.
• Increased risk of depression linked to mountaintop coal mining.
• Appalachian mountaintop mining particulate matter induces neoplastic transformation of human bronchial epithethial cells and promotes tumor formation.
• Improving the environmental quality component of the county health rankings model.
• Self-reported cancer rates in two rural areas of West Virginia with and without mountaintop mining.
• Health-related quality of life among Central Appalachian residents in mountaintop mining counties.
• Association between mountaintop mining and birth defects among live births in Central Appalachia.
• Atmospheric particulate matter size distribution and concentration in West Virginia coal mining and non-mining areas.
• Childhood asthma in rural-urban areas.
• Chronic cardiovascular disease mortality in mountaintop mining areas of Central Appalachian states.
• Atmospheric particulate matter in proximity to mountaintop coal mines: Sources and potential environmental and human impacts.
• Personal and family health in rural areas of Kentucky with and without mountaintop coal mining.
• Air pollution particulate matter collected from an Appalachian mountaintop mining site induces cardiovascular dysfunction.
• Adult tooth loss for residents of US coal mining and Appalachian counties.
• A comparative analysis of health-related quality of life for US counties with and without coal mining.
• A geographical information system-based analysis of cancer mortality and population exposure to coal mining activities in West Virginia, USA.
• Higher coronary heart disease and heart attack morbidity in Appalachian coal mining regions.
• Ecological integrity of streams related to human cancer mortality rates.
• Lung cancer mortality is elevated in coal-mining areas of Appalachia.
• Relations between health indicators and residential proximity to coal mining in West Virginia.
• Hospitalization patterns associated with Appalachian coal mining.
• Residence in coal-mining areas and low-birth-weight outcomes.
• Mortality rates in Appalachian coal mining counties: 24 years behind the nation.
• Cancer mortality rates in Appalachian mountaintop coal mining areas.
• The public health impacts of surface coal mining.
• Increased risk of depression for people living in coal mining areas of central Appalachia.
• Atmospheric particulate matter in proximity to mountaintop coal mines: sources and potential environmental human health impacts.
• The long-term economic benefits of wind versus mountaintop removal coal on Coal River Mountain, West Virginia.
• Mountaintop mining consequences.
• Learning outcomes among students in relation to West Virginia coal mining: An environmental riskscape approach.
• Association between residence near surface coal mining and blood inflammation.
• Health disparities and environmental competence: A study of Appalachian coal mining.

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