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.

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.

The post Coal, Air Quality, Health and Deprivation appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Bathurst, based in Wellington, but largely Singaporean-owned,  is the main coal miner supplying New Zealand’s dairy industry, Aotearoa’s second-largest coal user. The industry, dominated by Fonterra, burns coal to dry milk powder for export.  Last year the Overseas Investment Office granted Bathurst permission to buy more land in Canterbury for mining.

Extinction Rebellion Ōtautahi Christchurch protest at ECan offices in early May. Photo: ER Chch.

Bathurst’s current mine at Coalgate (Glentunnel, mid-Canterbury) produces 142,000 tonnes of coal a year, which once consumed adds 406,000 tonnes of CO2 a year into the atmosphere.  The extension, two kilometres away, would extend the life of the mine to 2035 and produce another 30,000 tonnes of coal a year – adding another 87,000 tonnes of CO2 a year to the atmosphere. 

Yet Fonterra has promised it is getting out of coal and working to transition to a new energy future – and the government has bought into this.  

In the leadup to Level 4 lockdown, Bathurst and Fonterra spent two days successfully lobbying the government to make thermal coal for dairy factories an essential use.  

Coal Action Network Aotearoa has had a long history of opposing Bathurst’s coal mining activities. In this blog we set out what is going on in Canterbury, along with other historical background to the company, its precarious finances, and its political relationships.  

Bathurst’s ongoing pollution of local rivers threatens endangered fish 

Right alongside the Coalgate mine is Bush Gully creek, habitat to the critically endangered Canterbury mudfish, which is close to extinction.  The creek runs through the land.

A large part of Bathurst’s application to Environment Canterbury (ECan) for this 18ha expansion of its current coal mine includes retrospective applications to make up for not meeting its consents for its current mining operations,as detailed in their resource consent applications, which are available via the ECan website. 

Bathurst is applying for retrospective consent on a range of issues, including its original consent for water use, which it has consistently exceeded, and for damage to the Tara Wetlands which it has damaged extensively, and is applying to continue doing so.  It has also breached consent on traffic movement, running more trucks up and down the road than it had consented – and wants to extend those movements. 

Aside from these breaches, let’s look at Bathurst’s record so far at its current Coalgate mine: 

• In 2017 Bathurst was ordered to pay a $10,500 fine from 14 infringement notices for failing to protect waterways from sediment runoff from the mine. ECan’s Waihora zone manager Michaela Rees, told Stuff the company’s failure to fully establish sediment controls such as fencing, staged ponds and planting, was a “very serious issue”.  “This left the waterways or streams vulnerable as there was inadequate protection in place to manage the risk of sediment run-off during a large rainfall event, of which there have been several this year.”
• But Bathurst clearly hadn’t cleaned up – as, in early 2018 it was ordered to pay a further $9750 for 13 more infringements, also relating to sediment runoff from the mine, causing runoff to flow into local rivers.  All 27 infringements between June and November 2017, left large areas of soil exposed to heavy rainfall that subsequently washed it into the rivers, including Bush Gully creek. The runoff ultimately ends up in the critically polluted Lake Waihora.
• One would think Bathurst would have learned its lesson.  But in January 2020 Bathurst was again fined – this time for $18,000 – for breaching its consent and discharging sediment into the Bush Gully Stream, home to the endangered Canterbury Mudfish.  While the discharge was not deliberate Judge B Dwyer said Bathurst’s offending involved a “systemic failure to comply” with the terms of its consent, and it took place in a “vulnerable environment which is a highly important habitat of a nationally threatened species”.

These breaches bring not only Bathurst’s environmental record into question, but also Environment Canterbury’s ability to properly monitor the company to stop it from polluting.  After the first breach,  Rees said “If the company fails to comply again in any way, we won’t hesitate to escalate our enforcement response if necessary – our waterways must be protected.”

And yet Bathurst went on to breach the consent on numerous occasions. Enforcement has not been escalated.  This is not only a reflection on Bathurst, it is also a reflection on ECan’s ability to keep the miner under control.

ECan cannot take climate change into consideration 

The elephant in the room with this application is the fact that under the current Resource Management Act (RMA), in weighing up whether to grant Bathurst consent for the new mine,  ECan is prevented from taking the mine’s impact on the climate into account. 

This is a fundamental problem with the RMA that has been addressed in the Parliamentary Select Committee’s report back of the RMA Amendment Bill, which is currently waiting for its second and third readings.

However, even those amendments will take some time to come into force, as the proposed legislation stipulates that a National Policy Statement on Climate has to be put into place first.  

So ECan will have to ignore the fact that the mine will dig up coal that will be burned in dairy factories and spew forth a further 87,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. 

How did Bathurst get here: a history

In 2016, after Bathurst had finally won consent to open the Escarpment Mine on the Denniston Plateau, the price of coal was so low that it wasn’t profitable to export the coal.  Then Bathurst’s sole customer at that time, Holcim Cement, closed down. 

Bathurst mothballed the mine, and turned its sights on domestic coal production to keep itself afloat.  Armed with a contract to supply Fonterra, it ramped up its production in Southland and Canterbury, at  Takitimu mine in Nightcaps and Coalgate mine near Glentunnel where it has twice extended its mining. 

This amped-up production for dirty dairy allowed Bathurst to keep itself afloat financially. It then teamed up with Talley’s to form a new company, BT Mining, which bought up Solid Energy’s coal assets on the West Coast and some in the North Island, a deal finalised in 2017. 

Protest outside a Fonterra distribution plant in Christchurch

However, the Escarpment mine remains mothballed, as Bathurst doesn’t have the consent from DOC it needs to expand a road to get the coal off the plateau. It is trying to get this across the line as part of the post COVID-19 “shovel ready” projects. 

Things got worse for Bathurst in April 2020 when it lost its appeal against paying L&M Mining the $60 million it owed the company for the Denniston/Escarpment mining permits. 

Bathurst bought the Escarpment mine from L&M for US $35m with another $40m (NZ$60m), due when Bathurst had shipped 25,000 tonnes of coal and another $40m payment when one million tonnes of coal had been shipped.  Bathurst’s argument to get out of this deal was that it hadn’t “shipped” any Denniston coal out of the country as it only went to Holcim Cement in Westport, so it didn’t owe L&M Mining the cash. But in April the Court of Appeal disagreed, and Bathurst’s shares plummeted. 

Bathurst is now seeking leave to challenge the Court of Appeal decision to the Supreme Court. 

Talley’s brings political donations into the mix 

When Bathurst teamed up with Talley’s to form BT Mining – and bought up Solid Energy’s assets on the West Coast and in the North Island, it also took on board Talley’s political connections.  Talley’s is a major funder of NZ First, donating $10,000 to Shane Jones for the 2017 election campaign, and, it turns out, giving the NZ First Foundation nearly $27,000 between 2017 and 2019. 

In May 2020, Regional Development Minister Jones  promised West Coast councils that DOC stewardship land would be open for business if New Zealand First has any say in it after the election.

“If we are blessed with the opportunity to create another government, NZ First will be pushing for extractive industries to occupy a very important position, post-Covid, because we have to create jobs and generate overseas income.”

It is clear that Jones is out to bat for his friends at BT Mining, and we hope that these climate killers won’t get any traction in the upcoming “shovel ready” decisions to be made by the Government.   

As former Chief Executive of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres wrote in the Financial Times: 

“The crux of the matter is that the pandemic-induced financial decisions made over the next 12 months will shape the global economy for the next decade, just when we must halve our emissions. The recovery packages will cost trillions of dollars. Governments are unlikely to have the resources to direct capital at such scale towards other urgent global needs for years. We cannot jump out of the frying pan of the pandemic and into the fire of exacerbated climate change. By that time we will have run out of fire hydrants.” 

The post From indigenous mudfish to the climate: you can’t trust Bathurst Resources appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Jeanette Fitzsimons trying (and failing) to get arrested at Fonterra’s Clandeboye dairy factory in Canterbury, 2017.

On Wednesday night 4 March we held our fortnightly Zoom call for an hour and a half, a standing CANA meeting for the last ten years. Jeanette was on the call, as usual, her sunburned farmer’s face beaming at us from Pakaraka farm.  24 hours later she was gone.

This blog has taken a while to post: her death took our collective breath away. It’s a long read, but we felt important to set out the important work Jeanette has done on coal.

We have been talking with each other in the days and hours since, and know that her death has motivated all of us with renewed conviction to continue her work, and her (and our) goal for the end of coal in Aotearoa, and no new coal mines.  Keeping the coal in the hole. We have huge shoulders to stand on, a legacy that we have to continue. Not just for Jeanette, of course, but for us and the future generations she cared so much about.

In this blog we attempt to summarise her extensive work with CANA. We will be posting again in the coming days with more personal takes from our team, because we all have our own memories, and stories to tell.  And because she was so dear not only to us but to the wider movement.

When she stepped down from her role as co-leader of the Green Party, the climate activist movement in Aotearoa was Jeanette’s lucky beneficiary: her stated “retirement” goal was to stop coal mines in New Zealand.  I put “retirement” in inverted commas because of course she was anything BUT retired.

When climate scientist Dr James Hansen visited in 2011, Jeanette toured the country with him, reaching out to all her contacts across Aotearoa, tapping into her extensive networks.  Hansen, the man who alerted the US Senate about climate change in 1978,  carried a strong message about the need to act on climate, and the need to stop burning coal as soon as possible.  At that point, with the support of the National government Solid Energy was planning to exploit the dirty lignite coal under fertile Southland farmland, and she was determined to stop it.

Jeanette with climate scientist Prof. James Hansen at the end of the 2011 NZ tour

By the end of the tour, hundreds had signed up to get involved with stopping coal. Being Jeanette, though, she didn’t want to set up a central group that coordinated all the others: she wanted each to have their own autonomy to act as they saw fit. SO typical of Jeanette’s philosophy of inspiring local activism.  [Extra:  Jeanette’s interview with Sustainable Lens during the tour]

It is also a testament to her that she refused to be the main spokesperson for CANA at the beginning: she didn’t want to take the limelight off CANA and onto herself: her image was still very much that of the Green Party and she didn’t want that to undermine CANA.  So she took a back seat, but was very much a driving force behind all our work, mentoring us all.

One of her aims in setting up our coal “action” group was to get arrested. Indeed she told me the only reason she had accepted her NZ Order of Merit was so that this would make an even bigger splash when she chained herself to a bulldozer.  We collectively failed her.

Jeanette was always a step ahead of all of us. Her research skills brought so much credibility to our work: her “can you make steel without coal” paper is still one of our most popular on the website (we are in the process of updating it).

Launching the Jobs Without Coal report.

She led our “Jobs without coal” report (and its update), and went to Blackball to launch it – the CANA call for a “just transition” was picked up far and wide, and her leadership in this area kick-started a national conversation.  She undertook some great research for that paper: going through the census figures and finding that indeed coal did not keep small communities alive: indeed, it was the opposite – she found the communities around coal mines are largely much poorer compared with the national average.

In 2013 Solid Energy was struggling, and as part of its divestment in order to keep itself afloat, it dumped its Southland lignite plans. It limped on, with major layoffs from its mines in the two years preceeding, and the following year Jeanette’s piece in the Dominion Post was prescient, calling for a Just Transition for Solid’s workers.

Our campaign against Bathurst Resources’ plans to mine on the Denniston plateau became our next big focus.  Forest and Bird’s fantastic legal challenges delayed Bathurst’s Denniston plans long enough for them to coincide with the coal price tanking, and while the company managed to clear the “overburden” at the mine, it couldn’t develop the resource, as we predicted, and was itself teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

Forest and Bird’s campaign was a national one, and we joined with all the other coal groups in urging the government to step in and stop the mine.

Wahine Toa: Jeanette, Catherine Delahunty and Debs Martin on the Denniston Plateau in 2014. Photo: Pete Lusk

We joined with 350.org and launched a campaign against their bankers: Westpac.  Jeanette was there at our launch outside Westpac’s main branch in Auckland.  (Not arrested). Jeanette also loved a good sticker, and we were very proud of our little Westpac logo-turned-coal-truck ones.

Jeanette at the Westpac campaign launch

Jeanette saw the writing on the wall and started to look at what was keeping the coal industry alive, and Fonterra was in her sights.  If we wanted to stop Bathurst, and the expansion of coal in Aotearoa, we would have to go after its clients, and by far the biggest was Fonterra.

Indeed it was Jeanette’s work that led us to the conclusion that Fonterra burned more coal than Huntly power station – it was our second-largest coal user in the country.  This is now an accepted fact and quoted by many.  (She was wearing her Fonterra Quit Coal T-shirt on the day she died.)

In 2015 Fonterra announced it was planning to develop its own coal mine at Mangatangi – or Mangatawhiri in the Waikato, and Jeanette was out at the weekends with Auckland Coal Action – and meeting with Fonterra to discuss the madness of this scheme.  The protests drove Fonterra to dump the idea as it managed to persuade Solid Energy to re-open the old Rotowaro mine.  We found out about this in March, and Jeanette’s blog announcing it drew ire from Fonterra and Solid Energy who denied such a thing. By September, the company confirmed what we’d announced for them in March.

She took part in a day of action with pamphlets and little bags of woodchips at the big Waikato Fieldays event just outside Hamilton. Again, she wasn’t arrested.

Jeanette at the Fieldays With Auckland coal action. Photo: Mark Taylor, Fairfax.

Of course Jeanette wasn’t just going to focus only on the coal use – she dove in deep, seeking out agricultural economists and other experts and looked at the bigger picture, advocating a reduction in cow numbers, with the solid argument that it would have little economic impact, but a big impact on reducing emissions.

In 2016 Fonterra applied for a consent to build two more coal-fired boilers at its dairy factory at Studholme, in North Otago just outside Waimate.  Jeanette led CANA’s very strong opposition, rallying experts on both the size of dairy herds, and on biomass, and giving our main submission.  We were partially successful” halfway through the hearing, Fonterra reduced its application from two to one boilers – quite a big victory for us.

Our leaflet on the Fonterra coal boiler plans at Waimate, written by Jeanette.

Jeanette was scathing of Fonterra’s statements to the Studholme hearing that it only had enough wood waste to co-fire only 20 percent biomass in each boiler. Her ire was only exacerbated when they reduced their application to one boiler – yet still maintained that number of 20 percent – one would think that would be increased to 40% with only one boiler, right?

At the end of the day: today, we forced Fonterra to first announce it would stop building coal-fired power plants by 2035, then to up that to state it would not build ANY new coal plants from now on.  It has a special page on its website about coal (see my rebuttal of that here), and is now tinkering around the edges of its climate policy to give the impression it is taking a lot of action.  It even managed to get EECA to pay for some of its coal conversion, which outraged Jeanette, EECA’s founder.  She died without having written her promised next letter to Fonterra, but it’s ok, we’ve got this Jeanette.

There is so much else to say about her work with CANA, and so much we have missed out,  such as the campaign against Christchurch Hospital’s planned coal-fired boiler (it’s now building a biomass boiler), the action at Clandeboye dairy factory in 2017, our CANA Summerfests, and the special times we as CANA spent on the farm with her and Harry at our regular hui.

But the Zero Carbon Act does deserve a mention, along with the policies she was advocating around climate change.  We submitted as CANA but Jeanette made her own carefully thought-out submission. She was totally right when she argued that the ZCA would not prevent a single emission: it is merely a framework into which policies must be inserted. She hated the ETS (instead favouring a coal price), and in her last days and weeks was absolutely furious at the government’s latest infrastructure spending announcement that had such a huge focus on roads.  None of us could understand how this had gotten past the new “climate lens” through which all big decisions made by the Government would be viewed, announced by James Shaw during the latest climate talks.

Jeanette always had other projects on the go – all of us were very busy at CANA and with our lives, yet we were only one part of her busy life.  We’d get a little glimpse into it on our fortnightly calls as we did our “round” at the beginning of each call.

She was heavily involved in the Supreme Court case challenging the RMA’s ridiculous clause that ruled out anybody considering a project’s impact on the climate during the consenting process: unfortunately the West Coast Environment Network lost the case, but she never let up on that front.

The demand on her time from across the country was huge. She diligently responded to every single email she received: one thing she is now relieved of is her ongoing battle with her inbox.  She loved hosting the Young Greens at the farm every year and, before she died, had just finished a youtube series for the Greens on the history of the party.

The CANA team at our hui on Pakaraka farm, 2013.

And during all of this she was doing what she loved best – her day-to-day work on the farm with her beloved Harry:  milking the cow every morning, picking chestnuts, making chestnut flour, selling their wares at the Thames market every Saturday morning,  picking olives and making that delicious olive oil, swimming in the gorgeous Kauaeranga River, practising the violin and spending as much time with her grandchildren in Wellington as she could.

This blog barely touches on who she was: her nurturing of others, especially the young, her wisdom, her ideals and ability to think outside the box, her gentle but forceful self.  Suffice to say we at CANA are heartbroken that we have lost our taonga, our wahine toa, our friend.  We will carry on the fight for you, Jeanette.

Haere ki te po, e te wahine whakaaro nui.

Go into the night, wise woman.

The post Jeanette Fitzsimons, the coal campaigner appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) today welcomed Fonterra’s commitment to build no new coal plants, a “no brainer” for the climate crisis the world faces. The group has been urging this transition for six years now and says it is glad Fonterra has listened.

However, the group warned the dairy giant should also not turn to gas as an alternative, as it had almost the same carbon footprint as coal.   Any new fossil fuel plant will have an expected life of 40 years, taking us well past the carbon zero target date.   In terms of alternatives, there are large quantities of waste wood from forestry just left to rot which could be put to use on some sites.

CANA protest outside Fonterra’s Clandeboye plant in mid-Canterbury, 2017.

Fonterra vies with Huntly power station as the country’s second-largest coal user, burning upwards of 534,000 tonnes of coal a year (these are 2015 figures).

“With this commitment to get out of coal, Fonterra has joined other members of the dairy industry, and we welcome it,” said Cindy Baxter of CANA. “Given the climate crisis it is time to stop drying milk with coal, something that has appalled visitors to the country – but they cannot make the switch to gas”

Fonterra’s coal use had possibly peaked anyway, according to CANA.  It has only been operating its Lichfield milk drying plant (powered by coal) for half the time in the last year, and while it had consent for a new coal-fired boiler at Studholme, outside Waimate in the South Island, there wasn’t enough milk being produced in the region to warrant the cost of building it.

This week the Interim Climate Change Commission recommended that the country phase out the use of fossil fuels from process heat,  starting with coal.

“What we now need from Fonterra is transparency about its coal use, and a clear phase-out plan, said CANA member Jeanette Fitzsimons.

“We need to know which plants will be converted when, using wood waste rather than electricity wherever this is available.  The coal industry needs this clarity, so it can plan a Just Transition away from this dirty fuel.”

Coal Action Network has been campaigning against Fonterra’s coal use for at least six years, after it found that Bathurst Mining was mining domestic coal to sell to the dairy giant to keep itself afloat after plummeting coking coal prices made it uneconomic to mine the Denniston Plateau on the West Coast.

Alongside the rise in dairy production has been the rise in the number of coal mines across New Zealand – in 2015 Fonterra persuaded Solid Energy to re-open the Kopako mine in the Waikato to supply it with coal.  In the South Island Bathurst has re-opened the Canterbury Coal mine at Glentunnel and expanded its operations at Nightcaps in Southland.

As a result of the Fonterra and other dairy company contracts, Bathurst scraped through the coal price crisis and was able, with Talley’s, to stump up the cash to buy out Solid Energy’s West Coast Assets.

“It’s time Fonterra stopped propping up New Zealand’s coal industry,” said Fitzsimons.

For further background information on Fonterra and coal, see two recent blogs:
Fonterra puts coal on a spin cycle

Fonterra, a useful step forward?

The post Fonterra’s halt on new coal welcome: don’t dash for gas appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Jeanette Fitzsimons speaking in Blackball on Saturday.

There was a theme for this year’s May Day seminar at Blackball, up the river valley from Greymouth, and crucible for the formation of the mining unions:

“A Sustainable West Coast Economy: dream or possibility?”

CANA was invited to speak about “The problem with the extractive industries”. You can read my speech here – I launched our 2015 Jobs After Coal report, with updated figures on last year.

May Day is traditionally a celebration of the 40-hour week and the gains workers have made through union activity and solidarity. The latest example would be Unite forcing the end of zero-hour contracts with McDonalds.

It was sad to hear Garth Elliott, EPMU organiser for the Coast, lamenting that these days the consumer society and TV have lulled many people into accepting the unacceptable or expecting the union to negotiate for them without the collective support of its members. I couldn’t help thinking the same forces lull us into accepting climate change, or expecting the government to look after us.

Paul Maunder, conference organiser for a number of years now, began with an excellent definition of sustainability. I was looking forward to hearing Grant Robertson talk about their Future of Work commission to see whether Labour had taken on board the need for a Just Transition out of fossil fuels, but unfortunately he was not able to make it on the day. Neither was any MP of any party.

There is a lot of support on the coast for developing a new economy that relies on clean energy and jobs that are locally owned and deliver what the community needs – energy, housing, food, transport – the Just Transition CANA argues for in Jobs After Coal.  This was reflected in the record attendance for the day.

There are also those who cannot accept that coal mining will not return and are just hunkering down waiting for the price to rise, but I sense their numbers are waning.

Also waning are the numbers of jobs in the coal industry – our report found there are 111 fewer jobs this year in coal than last year. There’s no sign of the promised jobs at Denniston – and there are unlikely to be any time soon.

And no, the last thing we’re doing is “dancing on the grave of coal” as the NZ Resources website thinks we are – we are extremely concerned about the future of a region that has been left to drift by a coal industry that clearly isn’t going to lift a finger to help.

And of course there was the usual climate denier – a geologist and engineer who has worked in the coal industry, arguing climate change won’t be that bad, we can adapt to climate change, it has happened before, we can move around and grow different things from now, there is no proof, etc.

If anywhere in NZ could be expected to argue this, given the pain the coast is experiencing from coal layoffs, it is here, but there was virtually no support in the room. A volley of counter arguments erupted and we moved on.

The public is ready for new, bold ideas but generally their elected leaders are not offering them. An exception is the Mayor of Buller who is trying a number of projects to provide alternatives for his community, the hardest hit by layoffs at Stockton, where another “restructuring” is expected this week.

He thanked CANA for our contribution in Jobs After Coal and wants to keep in touch. But there is still no sign of the “Everyone round the table” Just Transition process that would ensure full community buy-in.

The Mayor of Greymouth said a sustainable future should be based on expanded coal mining.  I hope he reads chapter 2 of our report that goes into the grim outlook for coal.

The regional council did not address sustainability but their plan is open for submissions at the moment – and I hope they get them.

The West Coast Development Trust (DWC) didn’t address sustainability either, and put forward no concrete ideas. They seem mainly concerned to preserve the value of the capital they have – the $92 million given to the Coast to help with economic development in 2000 when the logging of old growth indigenous forests was stopped.

They run some training and business development programmes but their own administration costs $2-3 million. Everyone we talked to who had ideas and projects complained that you can’t get money from DWC for innovative ideas that would create jobs.

So, the new extractive industry the West Coast seems to need today is a way of extracting some of the people’s money from their Trust, some of whose members are elected, to finance a just transition away from coal, away from fossil fuels.

The post May Day at Blackball: we call for a new extractive industry on the coast appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

What’s in this newsletter? 

1.  Upcoming Events

2.  Heads in the Sand! Join us on December 7

3.  The Elections – analysis from Jeanette Fitzsimons

4.  The IPCC – and New Zealand’s response

5.  Honey I shrunk the Board!  Bathurst Resources AGM

6. Bathurst extracts its first coal from Denniston

7. Wood energy prospects exciting

8. The “Beyond Coal and Gas Conference,” Australia

9.  Jobs After Coal report

10. From our Blog

11.  seeing off climate deniers

12. A special message from the Flat Earth Society

13. Divestment: decisions building

14. Climate voter march – report from Christchurch

15 Want to get coal news from around the world?

1. Upcoming Events

November 29-30  Step it Up – tools for systematic change (Auckland)

December 6         Ahipara Stop Statoil Concert  – and Ridesharing site from Auckland here

December 7          Heads in the Sand (National). See our Facebook event (and below for more info).

2.  Heads in the Sand – Save the Date on December 7

Our Government, with its relentless focus on minerals extraction policies and addiction to dairy, has got its head in the sand on climate change.  We’ve had enough of its weak, “let everyone else go first” attitude on climate, and its ongoing minerals extraction programme that threatens our beaches, our water, our coastlines and our Maui’s dolphins.

So we’ve decided to organise a Day of Action at beaches around the country on December 7, to send a message to the Government that we think it has its head in the sand on these issues.

The date coincides with the beginning of the second week of the international climate change talks in Lima, when our Ministers will be either there, or getting ready to leave.

We now have events set up in these places (links are to Facebook page events)

Dunedin:           1200 St Clair Beach
Christchurch     1200 New Brighton Pier
Nelson               11.30 Tahunanui Beach
Wellington        11.30 Oriental Bay
Auckland’s West Coast:  Bethells Beach, 1000 am

Invercargill:  meet on Oreti beach from 11.30 a.m. for a midday photo call, which will be followed by a family picnic. Organised by Coal Action Murihiku. Contact Jenny Campbell, 027 351 0180, jennycam@xtra.co.nz or Dave Kennedy 027  258 6686, vickbick.davek@xtra.co.nz

Ahipara:  watch for news of the event on our facebook page.

Lima: a small team of kiwis will carry out this action on Lima’s Miraflores beach.

We’re looking for an Auckland person to be an on-the-ground contact for an event at Mission Bay, because lots activists will be up north in Ahipara. If you can help with this, please email  coalactionnetwork@gmail.com

If you want to hold an event at your own beach, create a Facebook event and post it up on our main event page, and we’ll promote it for you. We’ve set up a Facebook page as an overall event page.   Also please let us know – email coalactionnetwork@gmail.com

It’s a really easy event to do – on our page we have details of the “how to” (with health and safety guidelines, plus media guidelines) and we think it’ll send a strong message.  This event was done in Australia as a message to Prime Minister Tony Abbott but, to be honest, our Government is no better.  We’ll also have a media plan to go with it and instructions to support you.

Please help us promote this event in the next two weeks by sharing on Facebook and with your friends and, of course, taking part.  

3.   The elections  

– Jeanette Fitzsimons

So: the election has come and gone and nothing has changed, except the perception that John Key has a renewed mandate to drill, mine and frack. It’s hard not to despair – so much more harm can be done in the next three years.

And of course he doesn’t really have that mandate. Surveys have shown that a substantial majority of kiwis want government to invest in clean energy rather than in extracting more fossil fuels.

But maybe it has to get worse to get better: to mobilise people to fight back. I’m just back from the Beyond Coal and Gas conference in Queensland where 270 committed activists strategised. They really have a nation-wide movement now, with more than 200 local “lock the gate” groups, a number of successful blockades and divestment campaigns, and traveling across the country to support each others’ actions.

That is not an accident; Australia is one giant fossil fuel mine, and people have reacted by becoming more active, more informed, more strategic and more co-operative. They have great communications and great financial analysis. We are going to need the same to protect Aotearoa from the new coal mines and deep sea oil fields that the Government and their corporate friends will be trying to foist on us over the next three years.

Where do you fit in? Will you join us at the next action?  Heads in the Sand, we hope, will be the first of many actions over the coming year.

4.  The IPCC – and New Zealand’s response

– Cindy Baxter

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has now released its final report – and it’s not great news.  The global assessment of more than 30,000 studies concludes that climate change is here, we’re causing it. What’s more, we have to rid the global electricity system of fossil fuels by 2050 – and the world of fossil fuels by 2100 if we want to keep warming below 2degC.  Carbon Brief has a good summary of what’s in the report.

The good news is that IPCC says it’s not going to cost a lot to do this, and renewable energy is on the up, especially in developing countries.   There are so many resources on the IPCC it’s difficult to know where to start.  This video is great.  The Tree (produced by the Global Campaign for Climate Action) has  a full set of resources.

The New Zealand Government “welcomed” the report, but Climate Change Minister went on to say that he didn’t want to hurt the bank accounts of big business by adopting “The Greens Agenda”.  No, Minister, it’s not the Greens’ agenda, it’s a global one, led by UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon. New Zealand’s contribution to the global debate so far has been to weaken our Emissions Trading Scheme, and suggest to the international community that the global agreement to be finalised in Paris next year should not include legally binding emissions reductions.  I have blogged on this, and a Pentagon report saying that climate change is an immediate threat to global security, here at Hot Topic.

5. Honey I shrunk the Board!

A team of hardy “faux” shareholders turned out in Wellington on the morning of Bathurst’s AGM on Friday 14 November, armed with reports and faux board members, to hold the “alternative” AGM, one that talked about a real future.  We called it our “Alternative Stakeholder Meeting”.

It was a peaceful affair, with the team managing to get into the legal offices where the meeting was held and get through about half our own stakeholder meeting agenda before one of the law firm’s partners got around to asking us to leave. By then, we’d managed to make a considerable impression on Bathurst shareholders arriving for their AGM.

We then ran through our entire stakeholder meeting on The Terrace .  There are photos and press release on our blog here and more photos on 350.org’s Facebook page.

The blog’s headline refers to the fact that Bathurst is so strapped for money they had to fire two members of their own Board to save some cash.

6.  Bathurst extracts its first coal from Denniston
-Jeanette Fitzsimons

Despite all our best efforts, we have to make the painful announcement that Bathurst is extracting its first coal from the Escarpment mine on the Denniston plateau.

For two and a half years we challenged them in the courts. From the first hearing in Westport, to Forest & Bird’s challenges in the Environment Court, the High Court and the Court of Appeal, to a parallel process where we assisted West Coast Environment Network arguing whether they should have to consider the impact of the coal on climate change, which ran in the Environment Court, the High Court and eventually in the Supreme Court.

During all this Rob Morris toured with his stunning photos of the wildlife on the plateau, and Forest & Bird held “bioblitzes” to discover new species in the mine area. Finally they needed a consent to operate from the minister of Conservation who despite his title decided this exceptional biodiversity didn’t matter.

But sometimes when you lose, you win. While all this was going on the international price of coking coal dropped from over $300/tonne to $107, making mining uneconomic for Bathurst.

They have dropped their production target from 500,000 MT/y rising to 2MT/y, to just 75,000 MT in the first year. They plan to use it in the local market and to send some overseas to potential customers to prove quality. We wonder how, at that price, they plan to pay the $40m they will owe to L&M, from whom they bought the mine, once they have extracted 25,000 tonnes.

No reputable analyst expects coal prices to rise in the next few years. They will make a smallish mess of the plateau, and we are sad and angry about that, but most of the coal will stay in the ground at present prices.

Further, the next 6-7 mines they plan on the plateau are unlikely to proceed.

7.  Wood energy prospects exciting
– Jenny Campbell

The focus on using wood as an energy source was the theme at the launch of the Wood EnergySouth project in late October, with about 70 people from across Southland businesses, schools, forestry interests and local and central government intent on learning of the potential.

‘’The target from the project is to deliver 55 000 cubic metres of woodchips being delivered annually to industries such as the meat works as well as smaller businesses and schools,’’ technical support advisor, Venture Southland, Lloyd McGinty says.  The scheme had incentives on offer as well as capital support for projects switching away from coal to wood.

Two highlights of the day were site visits to McCallum Group laundry at Otepuni Avenue, Invercargill with its recycled wood chip boiler and as a contrast, Slinkskins at Thornbury with their new, state of the art industrial heat plant.

Managing Director of McCallum Group, Wayne McCallum spoke to about 30 people at his plant, about their pioneering efforts in converting from LPG and oil.  Buying a lignite boiler from a dairy factory and converting it to a wood chip boiler was a good investment, and had huge benefits in fuel savings, savings on boiler maintenance, health and safety benefits.

People were impressed with the cleanliness of the boiler room and their commitment to reducing their carbon footprint by a further 25%. Support from the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority (EECA) had been invaluable with their support and advice and they are available on a continuing basis now through this Wood Energy South project, funded by the government.

Information for all the different applications for schools, industrial, commercial and service providers are on the website.

8. The “Beyond Coal and Gas Conference,” Australia
– Rosemary Penwarden

Fighter planes flew low in formation over our heads, adding to the unreality of the Beyond Coal and Gas conference near Brisbane recently; unreal because I had flown over fresh snow on the Maungatuas near Dunedin Airport to arrive in 39 degree heat in the Lucky Country, just as Australian Super Hornets had flown their 43rd sortie into Iraq as part of the US-led operation “Inherent Resolve”. The planes weren’t spying on us – there was an air force base nearby, but despite the heat it sent a chill down my spine.

There’s another war going on in Australia. On one side is a fossil fuel industry displaying all the signs of desperation as it scrapes and sucks coal and coal seam gas (CSG) from below the feet and livelihoods of Australians in a mad rush to meet shareholder expectations, endangering all in its path, including Australia’s most precious natural resource, its water.

On the other side are growing numbers of people from all walks of life, from farms and cities, young and old, black, brown and sunburned white, standing up and saying NO. Many hundreds of arrests, blockades, sit-ins, and all kinds of creative and peaceful direct action have followed community meetings. Australia’s biggest ever social movement is on the rise.

My favourite story from the weekend was of a farmer, at first defeated and depressed about the CSG invasion of his region, organising, blockading his land alongside neighbours, indigenous people and environmentalists, and finally donating 1,000 acres of it back to the local aboriginals, the nation’s ‘first owners’ (who say they do not ‘own’ Mother Earth – she owns them). Before the blockade changed his life, he had never spoken to an aboriginal person.

People power is giving the Australian government and fossil fuel industrial ‘war’ machine a run for its money and in places it’s winning.

For the amazing and inspiring story of the Bentley Blockade in the Northern Rivers, NSW: http://csgfreenorthernrivers.org/about-the-csg-free-campaign/

Front line action on coal to save the Laird State Forest.

Lock the Gate alliance

I felt privileged to meet so many committed, ‘ordinary’ people who understand the science and threat of climate change, who understand what needs to be done and are doing it. They are not defeated. They will win.

9. Jobs After Coal report
– Rosemary Penwarden

Jeanette and I took CANA’s Jobs After Coal report to Australia in the last week of October, to the Beyond Coal and Gas conference where we met up with around 270 campaigners against coal and coal seam gas. Our “Just Transitions” workshop attracted a big crowd and plenty of discussion.

We’re at different stages in the shift away from coal here in New Zealand, with half the coal mining workforce already gone in the past few years, but layoffs and mine closures are now increasing in Australia. Discussions are underway in the Aussie union movement and, as in New Zealand, the transition to renewables is happening despite a backward-looking, head-in-the-sand and hand-in-the-coal-industry’s-pocket government.

One of the really interesting movements taking root there is Earthworker Co-operative – a community-led initiative to provide sustainable, wealth-creating jobs that empower local communities and provide clean energy solutions.

10. On our blog

What you may have missed in our recent blogs:

Why would a Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement be bad for the climate? Tim Jones explains.

National’s Mining Agenda Has Failed by Tim Jones: After two terms of promoting mining, and bending over backwards to accommodate mining, and opening up conservation land and the seabed to mining, and removing legal impediments to mining – National has nothing to show for it.

11. Seeing off climate deniers

We were struck with horror on the morning on 4 November when TVNZ’s Breakfast show ran a full interview with the NZ Climate Science Coalition’s Bryan Leyland as part of its IPCC coverage.

They just let him talk his terrible nonsense about how the world wasn’t warming.  A really good blog went up on Hot Topic about how wrong Leyland was, and many of us set about tweeting to TVNZ, commenting on their Facebook post and making formal complaints.  We understand our climate scientists were also pretty upset.

By the afternoon, TVNZ had gotten the message, and took the whole story and video down off its website.  They left their Facebook post up, which links to nowhere, but which has the deluge of outrage.  Thanks to everyone who joined the fray – it was worth it.  Let’s hope TVNZ is a little more careful when considering interviewing climate cranks like this in the future. Leyland is an engineer, and not a climate scientist,  and to let him have such a clear run in the face of a global assessment of 30,000 studies was terrible.

We would like to see TVNZ taking a look at how it covers scientific issues, especially climate science, just as the BBC has. The BBC’s Trust has issued guidelines on science reporting.  Its review says:

“The BBC has a duty to reflect the weight of scientific agreement but it should also reflect the existence of critical views appropriately. Audiences should be able to understand from the context and clarity of the BBC’s output what weight to give to critical voices…. Judging the weight of scientific agreement correctly will mean that the BBC avoids the ‘false balance’ between fact and opinion”

12. A special update from the Flat Earth Society.

There’s this outfit called the Flat Earth Society who want to be friends with those who claim global warming is a conspiracy.  They sent us details of an outing they had in Dunedin on the occasion of a visit by Australian climate sceptic Bob Carter.

“On the 9th day of September in the Year of Our Lord 2014, on the occasion of the noble endeavour of His Eminence the Emeritus Bob Carter to strike down the Conspiracy of those Treacherous Scientists and Greens who have forced our government in the City of Wellington to pay homage to the dark Lords of NIWA, NASA and the veritable nest of vipers that is the IPCC, we, of the Dunedin Branch of the Flat Earth Society, had the great pleasure of welcoming Him and extending the hand of Friendship and Solidarity.

“We rejoice that we have found a like-minded soul battling such a global conspiracy, and rejoice that the esteemed and intelligent University of Otago Vice Chancellor saw fit to allow our Dear Bob to speak in our fair but misguided City. Our arm of Friendship and Solidarity extends to this Dear Lady.

“We await, with usual unlimited patience, a reply from His Eminence Bob Carter, to our humble request to share with us some of the bright fine gold that has come his way in support of his Great Mission from most venerable sources, such as the Heartland Institute and their friends ExxonMobil, Koch Brothers and Scaife Family Foundations.”

13. Divestment decisions building

New Zealand Institutions have been among the leaders of the pack on divestment from fossil fuels.  First, we had the New Zealand and Pacific diocese of the Anglican Church pledged to get out of fossil fuels.  It was followed soon after by the Dunedin City Council voting to endorse divestment.  However Dunedin still has a final decision pending:  please sign here to support Dunedin Councillors to do the right thing!).

Then this month the Victoria University Council made a similar decision.  Every week there seem to be new institutions around the world joining the fray, including Stanford University and the Rockefeller Family Fund.

In Australia, there’s been a huge debate, especially after Australian National University made the pledge, and was greeted with howls of derision from the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Education Minister, no doubt spurred on by the mining industry mouthpiece, the Minerals Council.   But the ANU has held its ground.  The whole story can be found here on The Tree (these alerts are great for people wanting to keep up with climate developments) There will be many more to follow.

We’ve seen ourselves here in New Zealand that investment in the coal industry isn’t exactly returning large sums to its shareholders, including Solid Energy and Bathurst Resources, both of which could be described right now as stranded assets.

The wave is getting bigger and we’re very proud that our institutions are part of it.   Special mention here for CANA’s own Jenny Campbell for her tireless work on the Anglican Church.

14. Climate Voter March – great turnout in Christchurch

– Rachel Eyre

A week before the election, and a week prior to the People’s Climate March that started in New York , we held our own spectacular March for Action on the Climate in Christchurch, organised by a diverse NGOs around the Climate Voter theme. Whilst we only had 300 people in contrast to New York’s 400,000 (!), the day was wet and cold and most people would be forgiven for sitting comfortably at home, resigned to the fate of a predetermined election result.  However a wide range of people did turn out with their signs and their umbrellas. We had young and old, Councillors, politicians (you can guess the colours), professionals, including a group of midwives with their babes in arms, and ordinary folk.

These people were not all your typical hardcore environmentalists. For some it was the first time they’d participated in anything like a march but felt compelled to vent their concerns.

The aim of the march was to be as inclusive as possible and to portray climate change as more than an environmental issue, but a social, health and economic one too.  The unifying message was “We want to see effective government action on climate change.”

The atmosphere was very positive and after marching down Riccarton Rd we gathered in Hagley Park for speeches, photos and the deflation of a giant-sized dinosaur representing “down with dinosaur thinking!”

Christchurch will also be one of the places aiming for a great turn out for the ‘Heads in the Sand’ event on 7 December at New Brighton Beach.

15.  Want to read Coal news from around the world?

• We can heartily recommend subscribing to CoalWire, an international newsletter for people working on coal around the world. This weekly update gives news on everything from local activism in Australia, India and China (and elsewhere) to what’s going on in the world of coal commodities.  Sign up here.
• There’s also an international website dedicated to #endcoal (that’s the hashtag from here on, twitterers).   Endcoal.org hasn’t got any kiwi stuff on it yet, but it will.

The post Coal Action Network Aotearoa Newsletter November 2014 appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Our press release, and images are below, but meanwhile the board meeting itself produced some interesting results:  Bathurst is so strapped for cash that it has had to lay off board members. It is still waiting for international coal prices to rise, but we don’t think this is going to happen any time soon.

Over in Australia, coal giant Glencore has even stopped mining for three weeks: paying its 8000 workers holiday pay is cheaper than digging cheap coal out of the ground.

Here’s our Press Release and pix of the action.

“Stakeholder Meeting” challenges who has the real stake in Denniston Plateau coal mining

Local and national advocacy groups staged a street-theatre style “stakeholder meeting” this morning in Wellington, billing it as an alternative to the AGM of coal mining company Bathurst Resources, for the real stakeholders in Bathurst’s coal expansion plans – New Zealanders.

Their aim was to call attention to the high stakes of Bathurst’s coal expansion plans for climate change and the environment, with Bathurst planning to open the largest new coal mining project in New Zealand, starting with their highly contested Escarpment mine on the Denniston Plateau.

“Bathurst executives are prioritising profit for themselves and a small number of shareholders, but the reality is that as New Zealanders we’re the ones who have the bigger stake in their plans”, says Ashlee Gross, spokesperson for 350.org Aotearoa who helped organise the event alongside Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) and Oil Free Wellington.

The group started their “stakeholder meeting” in the lobby of Minter Ellison Rudd Watts where the Bathurst AGM was being held, to catch the attention of shareholders arriving for the meeting.

A spoof Bathurst Director was asked questions by participants and gave humorously honest answers about the contradiction between their expansion plans and the scientific consensus that the world needs to be rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels in order to keep global warming to 2 degrees C, and on the impacts of conservation land on the Denniston Plateau.

On being asked to leave they went down to the sidewalk where they completed the performance for people on their way to work along The Terrace, interacting with shareholders arriving at the Bathurst meeting.

“Bathurst are getting a free ride on not paying for their CO2 emissions, so want to increase the amount of coal they are mining by more than 6 times per annum, but all New Zealanders, especially young people and our grandkids to come, and people around the world including our Pacific Island neighbours – if we let them go ahead we will have to pay a cost for that.” Says CANA spokesperson Cindy Baxter.

Bathurst Resources faces other significant challenges to their mining expansion plans, as international coal prices are currently too low for them to profitably sell coal from their flagship Escarpment mine on the Plateau, leaving their finances highly constrained.

This has been highlighted for the past year by CANA and 350.org Aotearoa as they are also asking Westpac bank to call in their loans, which provide key financing to Bathurst, in order to put financial pressure on them to stop expansion plans in a similar manner to several major banks recently announcing they won’t finance the Abbot Point coal port expansion in Australia.

More images on 350.org’s facebook page. 

The post Honey I shrunk the board! appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Press release

The news that Bathurst plans to start mining at Denniston on 1 July is a tragedy for the stunning ecology of the plateau, Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) said today.

“Not only is this a tragedy for the beautiful plateau, it is also a tragedy for the climate, as every new coal mine is stealing from our children’s future,” said Jeanette Fitzsimons, a spokesperson for CANA.

“It is a tragedy for the West Coast communities who will once again put their faith in the boom-bust of coal instead of building a more robust and reliable future.”

We know that this mine is not economic at current prices. Evidence at the Environment Court shows that Bathurst needs $160/tonne for the mine to be worthwhile and the current price is less that two-thirds of this.

“How are they going to pay the $22million compensation to DOC that is a condition of their consent?” asked Ms Fitzsimons.

“There is a real risk that this mine will fail economically and they will walk away leaving a massive hole in the ground, a permanently damaged plateau, an increase in climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions, and a default on their obligations to the Department of Conservation” she said.

Coal Action Network opposes all new coal mines but believes existing mines should be allowed to run their course, phasing out as their permits end and miners retire.

There is already five times more coal available to use than can be burned if the world is to remain below two degrees of warming, according to climate scientists.

The post Mining decision a tragedy for Denniston plateau appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Our new report released today.

It doesn’t include new mines such as Bathurst’s plans for the beautiful Dennison Plateau, where operations have stalled and 29 workers were recently laid off as the coal price has plummeted in the face of a global oversupply.

But imagine if the Government was to draw a line in the sand and state that there would be no more coal mines in Aotearoa.  If they did that today,  this would give coal mining communities the time to adjust, to plan a transition away from coal that involved the entire community, and led to a sustainable future.

This is the argument we set out in our new “Jobs After Coal” report, released today.

Our research has found that New Zealand’s coal mining communities generally have fewer full time jobs and lower per capita income than their surrounding region or district.

This is totally contrary to the coal industry’s claims of employment and prosperity.  Only two mining communities in the entire country have higher median incomes than their surrounding district and only one has higher employment.

It’s clear that coal does not bring the promised prosperity from digging up coal, coal that will ultimately end up in the sky when it’s burned, contributing to arguably the most pressing issue facing the world today:  climate change.

In our report we outline ways in which communities can transition away from coal to new sources of prosperity and jobs as international markets and climate change concerns lead the phase out of coal.

Coal is a boom and bust industry. When the bust comes, coal mining communities have been left with no support – except for plans for more boom and bust coal mines.  Over the last few years we’ve seen so many jobs lost, overnight, with families and communities thrown into chaos and facing an uncertain future.

In gathering information for our report, we called every single coalmine in the country, to find out just how many people are employed.  The final figure is 1259 jobs.

Yet the Government continues to go on about the need for coal mining jobs, pushing coal as a job creator, yet it barely blinks at the nearly 40,000 jobs lost in manufacturing in the five years to 2012.

The international situation, with record-low coal prices, and an oversupply, with countries like China and India moving to renewable energy and to cut pollution,  our coal industry is unlikely to recover any time soon.

Talk of a carbon bubble is now gaining traction as people begin to understand the idea that we have only a small ‘budget’ of carbon we can afford to emit to keep global warming below two degrees C.

Coal is a sunset industry, and fossil fuel investments will be left as stranded assets

We could pretty much consider Solid Energy as a ‘stranded asset’ these days, with banks forced to back a company that will continue to fail under the ongoing ‘perfect storm’ of low prices and the high dollar.

Over the last week we’ve seen two institutions move to divest themselves from fossil fuel interests:  the Dunedin City Council – and the Anglican Church’s New Zealand and Pacific Dominion – the first branch of the Anglican church worldwide to do so.

Jobs After Coal sets out many alternatives to mining, especially in renewable energy and an expanded use of wood. Mining skills are applicable over a wide range of different industries.  However, this transition will not happen without planning, leadership, resources, and involvement of the whole community.

We have to draw a line in the sand for the end of coal in New Zealand, then plan for the day that this happens. Involve the whole community and plan a transition that doesn’t dump people out of jobs overnight.

The sooner we prepare for a future where mining towns can determine their own paths without dependence on the vagaries of a dying industry, the better.

The post Coal communities deserve better than the “boom and bust” coal industry appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.