All that summer we sailed the drowned isthmus,
Miramar Island bulking east. Diving
was an anxious wait for murk-filled water

to yield its occasional treasures, relics of better days
left behind as the frantic dikes were overwhelmed.
Out by the drowned airport runway,

the never-finished extension lost beneath us, we faced
long rollers carrying Antarctic meltwater northward,
braved the sudden southern chop and squall

to plumb abandoned warehouses, corroding cars.
So many days we returned empty-handed
to the boatshed on the Wadestown shore,

worked the elaborate locks with reddened fingers,
climbed the hill to short commons and mixed
parental signals of frustration and concern.

It was a life lived in increments of bad news, a
Government of bluster and paralysis, its authority
manifested in chain-link fences and pronouncements

no longer listened to on matters that concerned
only those sited most securely inland. At the water’s edge
the social contract washed away, replaced

by alliances more fickle than the weather.
And the sea still rose, icecaps converted to ocean
by generations of accumulated arrogance.

That was all before our time. What we knew
was the rising wind, swoop of storm,
slack and snap of sails, one of us waiting aboard,

the other diving the ruins of lives lived
in those final glittering years of denial
before the ocean washed all doubts away.

– Tim Jones

INTRODUCTION

He waka eke noa – We are all in this together.

The New Zealand Government has declared a Climate Emergency. The seriousness and ambition of the Climate Change Commission’s advice to the Government should reflect that – now is not the time for half-measures. Yet the draft targets and timelines are patently inadequate in the face of the ever-growing climate catastrophe.

To meet the challenge of climate change, it is essential that Aotearoa plays its part, both domestically and internationally, and serves as an example to other nations. Our team of five million responded well, acting communally, on scientific advice, to keep ourselves safe from COVID-19. Now we need to do it again, to help save the world from an even greater threat.

The majority of people in Aotearoa realise the urgency of climate action and want the Government to act now, in strength and justice. The Government must publicise and follow the science, so that all parts of society can make a planned and just transition.

It is essential to our survival as a civilisation, that we do everything we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.

We need to focus on redefining economic growth and reducing consumerism. An energy descent is still possible.

As with COVID-19, people will respond to clearly expressed policies required to meet climate targets. We need to step up, as we have made too little effort to date. As a developed nation, Aotearoa has the capacity and the means to do this, compared to other countries, many of which look to us for an example.

If we do not act decisively now, it will be much harder in the future. We are already seeing the disastrous consequences of inaction for the global poor, who have contributed minimally to global warming. Ecosystem collapse is already occurring, as temperatures increase and the forests and oceans edge towards becoming carbon sources, rather than sinks.

Above all, we have a responsibility to future generations; not only to humans, but to every other living species which cannot speak for itself. This is a moral and ethical commitment.

About Coal Action Network Aotearoa

Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) is a group of climate justice campaigners committed to ending coal mining and use in Aotearoa New Zealand. Formed in 2007, we recognise the mining and burning of coal as the primary threat to Earth’s climate system. CANA promotes climate justice by advocating and acting for a just transition to an Aotearoa free of coal mining and use. We work with local communities threatened by new coal mines and coal projects, and with allies across the climate justice and environmental movements. We are a member of the New Zealand Climate Action Network. Our target date for coal mining and use in Aotearoa to end is 2027.

Successful campaigns we’ve been involved in include:

• Helping to end Solid Energy’s plans to mine and burn massive quantities of Southland lignite
• Getting Fonterra to commit to, and then bring forward, an end date for installing new coal boilers
• Bringing Fonterra’s use of coal to the attention of the country
• Encouraging the New Zealand Government to set up a Just Transition Unit to help resource communities depend on fossil fuel extraction to transition to low-carbon jobs
• Opposing the expansion of Bathurst Resources’ Coalgate mine in Canterbury – this mine is now being closed down
• As part of the Fossil Fuel State Sector coalition, getting the Government to commit to replacing coal boilers in schools with renewable alternatives.

We have been involved in legal action, direct action, and lobbying to achieve these goals. Our members and supporters are members of local communities with experience of the negative effects of coal mining and use, climate activists, and scientists. We work with communities around the motu, other activist groups, and central and local Government to achieve our aims.

In writing this submission, we acknowledge the work done by the Climate Change Commission to produce its draft advice in difficult conditions and under time pressure, and likewise, the work of many individuals, groups, and journalists in analysing the report and producing submission guides. CANA contributed to this cross-groups submission guide, and we want to acknowledge the work put in by all the groups that contributed to that document.

We also endorse the submission of OraTaiao, with its focus on the health and wellbeing co-benefits of climate action and the centrality of Te Tiriti.

CANA’S “BIG ISSUES”

 1.  Urgent and Effective Action to Reduce GHG Emissions is Required

 Whilst the Commission’s draft advice is a welcome change from decades of Government obfuscation and reluctance to address the existential threat of climate change, the Commission’s clear systemic bias towards Business as Usual (BAU) has blinded it to actions that need to be taken. The advice reads like “happy talk”, in that the Commission:

• supports the political and economic status quo, e.g. in the treatment of methane and electricity generation;
• irrationally assumes there will be enough time for incremental policies to solve super-wicked problems, and,
• despite decades of egregious failure, does not question whether our post-WW2 economic and political structures are up to the task. As per the previous link,

“…the responsibility for global warming is not the common property of humanity but lies overwhelmingly with the few wealthy countries, the United States above all others, that profited most from early industrialization.

 The corollary truism is that the poor countries that disproportionately suffer the impacts of climate change contributed next to nothing to the problem. We have since learned that what is true in global macrocosm applies at the societal level as well. The wealthy consume far more resources and emit far more carbon than the rest of us.

 According to a recent Oxfam report, the richest one percent produce twice as many emissions than the poorest half of the planet’s population, and the richest 5 percent were responsible for more than a third of all emissions growth between 1990 and 2015. Leveling this gross inequity is a question of survival.”

Furthermore, we are, frankly, astounded that the draft never mentions rapidly approaching biophysical hard deadlines such as the multiple “tipping points” (aka planetary boundaries) that our civilisation is transgressing.

These include the melting ice of West Antarctica and Greenland, forests becoming net carbon sources instead of sinks, and the warming Arctic permafrost and shallow seas that are emitting ever-increasing amounts of methane.

These trends, coupled with the latest CMIP6 climate modeling that show a higher climate sensitivity than previously thought, suggest that we do not have more than one or two decades before our emission budgets are overwhelmed by feedbacks in the Earth system and atmospheric and ocean temperatures spike uncontrollably. We know this has caused mass extinction events in the past, e.g. the PETM.

As stated in a recent scientific review, “Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future” (emphasis added):

We report three major and confronting environmental issues that have received little attention and require urgent action.

 First, we review the evidence that future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts.

 Second, we ask what political or economic system, or leadership, is prepared to handle the predicted disasters, or even capable of such action.

 Third, this dire situation places an extraordinary responsibility on scientists to speak out candidly and accurately when engaging with government, business, and the public. We especially draw attention to the lack of appreciation of the enormous challenges to creating a sustainable future. The added stresses to human health, wealth, and well-being will perversely diminish our political capacity to mitigate the erosion of ecosystem services on which society depends.

 The science underlying these issues is strong, but awareness is weak. Without fully appreciating and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest sustainability goals.

 …most of the world’s economies are predicated on the political idea that meaningful counteraction now is too costly to be politically palatable. 

 The gravity of the situation requires fundamental changes to global capitalism, education, and equality, which include inter alia the abolition of perpetual economic growth, properly pricing externalities, a rapid exit from fossil-fuel use, strict regulation of markets and property acquisition, reigning in corporate lobbying, and the empowerment of women. These choices will necessarily entail difficult conversations about population growth and the necessity of dwindling but more equitable standards of living.

We repeat, this is not climate “alarmism”, but cold, hard fact. To have some hope of maintaining a reasonably habitable planet for ourselves and other living species, we need to take actual and urgent action, to bend the emissions curve. The CCC’s draft recommendations to the NZ Government, if implemented, would be a step forward from our very feeble response to climate change so far, but we do not consider them to be nearly strong enough. We have proposed a number of changes to the Commission’s advice to strengthen its policy recommendations. As the draft report says, to the extent that is possible, we need to address this problem in a way that is fair to people and protects their living conditions and livelihoods.

2.  End Coal Mining and Use in Aotearoa

In light of the above, Coal Action Network Aotearoa is calling for an end to coal mining and use in Aotearoa by 2027, including a ban on both coal imports and exports.

NB: In this, we can cite the support of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who recently said:

“Phasing out coal from the electricity sector is the single most important step to get in line with the 1.5 degree goal.”

Mr. Guterres underlined action in three areas to end what he called “the deadly addiction to coal.” 

He called for countries to cancel all coal projects in the pipeline, particularly the 37 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) who are urged to do so by 2030. 

The UN chief also appealed for ending international financing for coal and providing greater support to developing countries transitioning to renewable energy. 

 “I also ask all multilateral and public banks — as well as investors in commercial banks or pension funds — to shift their investments now in the new economy of renewable energy”, he added.

Specifically, CANA Requests that the Commission:

• Advise the Government to immediately ban new and expanded coal mines, including but not limited to a ban on mining coal on conservation land
• Set an end date of 2025 for all coal mining in Aotearoa – including coal for export
• Set an end date of no later than 2027 for the import of coal into Aotearoa
• End the free allocation of ETS credits to coal and other fossil fuel users, starting with an immediate end to free allocation of credits to large industrial users of coal

It is vital that the transition from the use of coal is to renewables, not other fossil fuels, and in particular, that it is not to natural gas, given that fugitive emissions mean the extraction and use of natural gas are almost as bad for the climate as burning coal.

The transition must be urgent, but it must also be just. We discuss this later in our response.

In 2019, about 2.68 million tonnes of coal was mined in Aotearoa, leading to well over 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. Additionally, in 2020, 1.1 million tonnes of coal were imported into Aotearoa.

In 2021 it is, frankly, a disgrace that a country with the wealth of renewable energy resources New Zealand possesses is still so dependent on coal. The good news is that alternatives are either available now, or rapidly becoming available. The rise of large-scale electricity storage means we don’t need to keep relying on coal or gas to back up renewable energy generation.

Coal boilers are being phased out at all levels: in 2019, Fonterra made a commitment to build no new coal boilers, while the Government has committed to a carbon-neutral public sector by 2025 and is rapidly moving to get coal out of school and hospitals.

But public-sector coal use represents a small fraction of New Zealand’s emissions from burning coal. It’s time to go much wider, and the climate emergency demands that we act much more urgently to phase out coal than the Commission projects. Many overseas jurisdictions have either ended the use of coal or announced target dates to do so within the next few years. New Zealand should not be dragging the chain.

The Commission has said that the use of coal needs to end (Advice report, p.15) – yet also projected coal use continuing at above 10 PJ/yr right up to 2050 (Advice report, Figure 5.4, p. 91). It’s time for the Commission to end the ambiguity and recommend to Government a firm phase-out date for coal.

3.  Low Hanging Fruit – Process Heat in the Dairy Industry

We will focus our submission here on Fonterra, as the country’s biggest user of coal for process heat.

Fonterra has stated that it will not build any new coal boilers, bringing that date forward from 2030. This may seem like progress, but our understanding is that political and other constraints mean that NZ has reached “peak cow” and Fonterra has, in fact, no need to build any more boilers.

Fonterra recently stated that it will reduce emissions by 30% by 2030, and the Climate Commission draft states that Fonterra should be allowed to continue to use coal for process heat until 2037. As noted above, CANA’s target date for coal mining and use in Aotearoa to end is 2027. Continued use of coal for process heat until 2037, by Fonterra or any other company or industry, is unacceptable.

The Commission’s Process Heat evidence (Chapter 4a: Reducing emissions – opportunities and challenges across sectors Heat, Industry and Power) states:

At current carbon prices, the operating costs of low emissions fuels are generally considered more expensive than fossil fuels.

The Commission should recommend a carbon price high enough to reverse this absurd – and unhealthy – price gap.

The Commission also refers to “current business models” that limit a company’s ability to convert to other forms of energy such as biomass.

The Commission rightfully states that New Zealand doesn’t have a huge amount of expertise in large biomass plants, and availability.  This is indeed true.  The downside of this is that a few so-called “experts” who have little international experience, nor willingness to understand, for example, the experience in Europe, are advising companies like Fonterra that there is no availability of biomass for new boilers.

We need to draw on overseas expertise. Europe is far ahead of New Zealand in this issue and biomass plants, using all kinds of sources, are common there.

4.  Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms 

Another issue the Climate Change Commission omits to mention are Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms, and how that sits with our current Eligible Industrial Activities (EIA) allocations of NZU to big emitters, who argue they need a level playing field internationally, so shouldn’t have to pay a carbon price for their use of coal.

Over the nine years 2010-2019, for example, Fonterra was allocated 333,489 free units. It wasn’t our biggest recipient, by any means, but is an example of how this country does not provide any disincentives for coal users, and is therefore propping up a dirty industry.

While the recipients of these free allocations have previously relied on the argument that they would be at a competitive disadvantage internationally if they had to pay for their emissions, the situation is rapidly changing. The European Union is actively considering imposing Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (e.g carbon taxes or tariffs) on any goods entering the region that haven’t had to pay for their emissions at source.  China is also putting Emissions Trading Schemes in place in some regions, and is likely to take these nationwide in the near future.  The US, UK and the G7 are likely to follow suit.

Thus, while the Zero Carbon Act does reduce EIA allocations gradually through to 2050, exporters such as Fonterra are likely find themselves facing growing border costs.

This is another reason to remove these allocations sooner rather than later, so that exporters such as Fonterra are forced to switch from coal.

In our view, free allocations of credits to large industrial users of coal and other fossil fuels should cease immediately.

5.  Fossil Free State Sector

The Government’s announcement, as part of its Climate Emergency declaration, that it was committed to becoming a carbon-neutral Government by 2025 was welcome. However, while some sectors (such as education) are now making progress in actual emissions reductions by removing coal boilers from schools, there are still many Government departments and agencies that have not yet focused on what they will need to do to reduce their emissions.

As a result, there is a considerable risk that offsetting, rather than actual emissions reductions will be the main method used to meet this target.

Therefore, CANA wants the Commission to advise the Government that it should place a high priority on reducing actual emissions to zero from the state and public sector by 2025.

6. The Cost of Climate Change

The CCC’s estimates of the costs of action (GDP) vs BAU show that acting on climate change will cost little more than BAU GDP projections. Due to the fact that there are no complete studies of the costs of climate change impacts to the country, the CCC simply left out the whole subject.

This is, in our view, raises a major communications issue. For years, consecutive governments have successfully argued that acting on climate change would cost too much, especially the Key government. In 2015, then Climate Change Minister, Tim Groser, argued the cost of meeting our target would cost New Zealanders $30 billion. He claimed that a stronger target would cost the country too much, but the opposite is true, as the following articles attest:

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/drowning-dreams-billions-at-stake-as-govt-mulls-sea-level-rules

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/aucklands-500m-roading-problem

Treasury 2018 estimate of the rising cost of climate change is also sobering:

https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2018-08/LSF-estimating-financial-cost-of-climate-change-in-nz.pdf

..we estimate that flood and drought costs attributable to anthropogenic influence on climate are currently somewhere in the vicinity of $120M per decade for insured damages from floods, and $720M for economic losses associated with droughts.

Because no NZ-based peer-reviewed papers yet exist investigating the FAR associated with storm damage, hailstorms, wildfire, frosts or tornadoes, we have left these out from the analysis. Our neglect of such events means we ignore at least NZ$279M in weather-related losses between July 2007 and June 2017. As an indicative comparison, if the FARs associated with these events were similar to those in the table – around 0.3 – then the extra attributable losses would add another $84M.

Our first estimate is that climate change attributable extreme rainfall-related floods have cost New Zealand around $120M in climate change attributable privately insured damages over that ten year period. Our second estimate is that climate change-attributable economic losses associated with droughts have cost New Zealand around $720M over that ten year period. These estimates are necessarily approximate and incomplete. Nevertheless, they provide ball-park estimates of current climate change-attributable costs, and the methodology could be extended to examine a wider range of hydrometeorological and other impacts, potentially forming one important element of a future more comprehensive understanding of climate risks in New Zealand.

 In the Evidence chapter 12.2.1, the Commission’s draft states:

Under current policy settings, GDP is projected to grow to $512 billion by 2050. This is likely to be an overestimate as this does not factor in the negative climate and trade impacts of not acting on climate change.

It further states:

Any analysis of the impact on GDP only provides a narrow picture of the impacts of reducing emissions. It does not reveal the indirect costs and benefits, nor who the costs and benefits fall on. The cost of not acting on climate change and the co-benefits of actions to reduce emissions, such as to health, the environment and productivity from increased innovation, are significant and provide even more reason for a country to act on climate change.

The rising costs of climate impacts

While we accept there is no New Zealand-wide study on the subject, some preliminary work has already been undertaken. However, the two statements above are buried in Chapter 12 of the Evidence report, and not well communicated to the wider population.

Frame et al, 2018, did address this issue. They looked at the costs of floods and droughts over the course of a ten-year period, finding:

…we estimate that flood and drought costs attributable to anthropogenic influence on climate are currently somewhere in the vicinity of $120M per decade for insured damages from floods, and $720M for economic losses associated with droughts.

Because no NZ-based peer-reviewed papers yet exist investigating the FAR associated with storm damage, hailstorms, wildfire, frosts or tornadoes, we have left these out from the analysis. 

Our neglect of such events means we ignore at least NZ$279M in weather-related losses between July 2007 and June 2017. As an indicative comparison, if the FARs associated with these events were similar to those in the table – around 0.3 – then the extra attributable losses would add another $84M.

Nevertheless, they provide ball-park estimates of current climate change-attributable costs, and the methodology could be extended to examine a wider range of hydrometeorological and other impacts, potentially forming one important element of a future more comprehensive understanding of climate risks in New Zealand.

Moreover, New Zealand has more than $20 billion worth of assets vulnerable to sea-level rise, another factor ignored by the Climate Change Commission in this draft.

While we accept there is no currently agree method of modeling these costs, that should not be a reason for the CCC to just go with a projected BAU GDP, and thus conveying the same kind of misleading communications to the New Zealand public in this report that we have seen over the past 30 years.

In summary: This flawed strategy has focussed attention on the cost of action, conveniently leaving out the very important issue of the costs of inaction, thus skewing the debate.

While Chapter 12 of the expert evidence does include two small paragraphs, this is wholly inadequate to the importance of the issue. It should have been front and centre in the Advice Report.  There is no mention at all of such costs, even generally, in the Executive Summary of the CCC’s advice to the government, therefore the country and our media will all be focussing on the costs of transition to a low-carbon economy.  What are the benefits of avoiding dangerous climate change?  What are the costs of continuing the way we’re going, and the impacts of a >3C world? These are indeed big issues, but to avoid discussing this aspect altogether is both disingenuous and dangerous.

The NZ Insurance Council’s data on the costs of extreme weather events bring this into focus. Last year the Napier floods alone cost $73m. The Ohau fire cost $35m.  How many coastal properties or properties on floodplains are going to lose their ability to get insurance?

By omitting this discussion altogether from its advice and the public conversation, the Climate Change Commission is not providing the New Zealand public with reasons to take action. Instead, we are left with conversations about the Government preparing to take away someone’s gas barbecue, never mind the fact that the home containing that barbecue may well be destroyed by the warming of 3-4C that currently awaits us!7.  Emission Budgets

Re the CCC draft advice Big Issues Question 1, Do you agree that the emissions budgets we have proposed would put Aotearoa on course to meet the 2050 emissions targets?

Coal Action Network Aotearoa strongly disagrees. The emissions budgets are not ambitious nor set to be achieved quickly enough. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 1.5-degree report outlines that for a 66% chance of averting climate catastrophe, we must begin emissions reductions with deep cuts, starting immediately. The Commission’s proposed approach is clearly not ambitious enough and risks passing many tipping points, which would put us on a hothouse earth trajectory.

The proposed emissions budgets must take into account the commitment to global equity and New Zealand’s obligations as a developed nation that are noted in the NDC section of the report. The legislation describes the purpose of emissions budgets to be for meeting the 2050 target AND New Zealand contributing to global efforts for 1.5 degrees (section 5W).

There are various policy areas where greater action can be taken in the next decade to enhance the first two budgets for greater consistency with IPCC’s 2030 pathways for 1.5 degrees while also meeting the 2050 target.

Re Big Issues Question 5, What are the most urgent policy interventions needed to help meet our emissions budgets? (Select all that apply)

Action to address barriers – Pricing to influence investments and choices – Investment to spur innovation and system transformation – None of them

All of these are urgent, and, to quit coal, all of the first three are required.

Coal and other fossil fuels can be burnt far too cheaply. The low price range in the ETS and, even worse, the massive allocation of free credits to major polluters – which renders the ETS unjust and ineffective, and gives vested interests an unearned financial advantage over renewable energy industries – render it an almost completely ineffective tool for influencing investments and choices.

CANA requests the Commission recommend to Government that:

• The floor price for ETS credits be sharply increased, and
• The allocation of free credits be ended immediately

High-temperature processes that use coal are a crucial area where investment to spur innovation and system transformation are needed. The Advice report, Fig 5.4, p. 91, projects that coal use will continue at above 10 PJ/year right up to – and possible beyond – 2050. From discussions with Commission staff, we understand that this demand is for steel and cement production.

If steel and cement production is to continue in Aotearoa, both must transition rapidly away from coal consumption.

NB: Research & development in carbon-free steel is already accelerating overseas, notably in Europe and Australia, and New Zealand Steel should be put on notice that a similar transition is urgently needed here.

Re Big Issues Question 6, Do you think our proposed emissions budgets and path to 2035 are both ambitious and achievable considering the potential for future behaviour and technology changes in the next 15 years?

Strongly disagree

In our view, the Commission’s recommendations lack ambition.

Given that we were all led to understand, by Climate Change Minister James Shaw, that the Climate Change Commission would provide advice on a 1.5C compatible 2030 target, we are puzzled as to why the CCC did not provide such a recommendation, only stating it should be “much more than 35%”.  This is another communications failure.

By only stating “much more than” and not giving any number above 35%, it is logical that the public understanding (and indeed we have already heard this from the media) is that the target should be 35%, not the “much more than” as set out in the recommendations by the CCC.  Moreover, the emissions budgets don’t even meet our weak 2030 target.

This is a failure of monumental proportions, exacerbated by the aforementioned failure to communicate to the public – and to Government – the cost of inaction, the cost to Aotearoa of a >3C world.  

Leaving aside the obfuscatory and unacceptable gross:net accounting of our plantation forest sinks (and its new “averaging” iteration), New Zealand’s emissions in 2030 will be around 67 MtCO2eq/year (excluding LULUCF). To be compatible with the Paris Agreement, those emissions should be at 41 MtCO2eq/year: a 50% reduction by 2030 levels excluding LULUCF.

NB: This is just for our domestic emissions pathway: taking into account our privileged position in the developed world, and “fair share” equity contribution to global emissions reductions, this should be even less.  (Here we agree wholeheartedly with the submission by Lawyers for Climate Action).

The problem is, the emissions budgets provided by the CCC are based on what the industry has said it can do, not on what must be done. The CCC has failed to do its job. Its budgets do not even meet the 2030 target.

To truly meet the scale of the climate emergency, and to play our part in giving the world a chance to stave off the worst effects of climate change, we need to carry out the bulk of the needed emissions reductions by 2030. Although not easy, decarbonising heat, industry, and power is comparatively straightforward compared to the challenges faced in decarbonising sectors such as transport and agriculture.

Therefore, we need to press ahead quickly, end the use of coal in this sector by 2027, and ensure a transition to renewable energy use.

8.  Te Tiriti

Re Detailed Question 7, Do you support enabling recommendation 3 on creating a genuine, active and enduring partnership with iwi/Māori? Is there anything we should change and why?

We agree that this partnership is critical, but the Commission’s focus on “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” rather than the wording of Te Tiriti risks weakening this focus and imperilling this partnership.

The Commission should undertake a thorough Te Tiriti analysis of its proposals and include recommendations on how Crown policy can give effect to Te Tiriti in achieving emissions targets.

Without prejudicing the outcome of such an analysis, we envisage this could include a national-level partnership mechanism with Māori as well as measures to enable iwi, hapū, and whānau to exercise their rangatiratanga and kaitiaki role in respect of taonga within their rohe.

9.  Overall Path

Re Detailed Question 12, Do you support the overall path that we have proposed to meet the first three budgets? Is there anything we should change and why?

CANA do not support this pathway, because it is insufficiently ambitious, particularly with respect to methane. We call for the Commission to recommend large cuts to methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture, through destocking and by imposing limits on the import of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and PKE.

The IPCC report estimates that 30 – 40% of current global warming comes from humanity’s methane emissions, as shown below:

Furthermore,

“Controlling methane emissions is an effective way to slow global warming. Because methane is very effective at trapping heat and has a relatively short lifetime of about a decade before it oxidizes to carbon dioxide, controlling its emissions is an effective way of reducing the heat trapped in the atmosphere now. It thus is very influential in determining how rapidly the planet warms.”

To our dismay, the draft submission barely mentions this fact, preferring strained and specious arguments centred on the short lifetime of methane in the atmosphere (10-20 years). Unfortunately for all of us, the Global Warming Potential of methane over 20 years is about 85 times that of carbon dioxide, and that heat remains in the atmosphere and ocean long after the methane molecules have decomposed into carbon dioxide and water.

The full impact, going forward, of this uncomfortable truth is left to the last page of the Commission’s draft advice, where we find the following graph:

To reiterate, whilst a particular molecule of CH4 decomposes relatively quickly to CO2 and H2O, most of the heat it has trapped in the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, causing the sea level to rise (SLR).

Ocean warming causes SLR through both ocean thermal expansion and the melting of the underside of floating ice shelves in the polar regions, which then destabilizes adjacent land-based ice sheets.

To our surprise, the Commission’s draft advice seems oblivious of these critical processes, despite much of the research having been carried out by their own colleagues!

The historical impact of methane-induced warming is shown in the graph on p.76 of the Commission’s draft advice, where we can easily see that the cumulative warming caused by methane is more than that of the next two gases combined.

10.  A Just Transition  

Re Consultation Question 13, Do you support the package of recommendations and actions we have proposed to increase the likelihood of an equitable, inclusive and well-planned climate transition? Is there anything we should change, and why?

We are pleased to see that the Commission acknowledges the need for an equitable transition to a low-carbon economy. CANA has been a leader in this field, specifically in terms of the need for a just transition to low-carbon jobs for New Zealand coal miners and coal mining communities.

Our 2015 report Jobs After Coal: A Just Transition for New Zealand Communities helped contribute to the Labour Party’s Future of Work project and has contributed to the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions’ thinking on just transitions – see for example NZCTU, Just Transition – A Working People’s Response to Climate Change (2017), p. 16.

Jobs After Coal argues that:

• the role of coal in New Zealand’s economy is small
• there are many options for jobs in the industries that will replace coal
• skills of coal miners are transferable to other industries, and
• communities can reinvent themselves to regain a new prosperity after coal.

These positive outcomes depend on recognising the need for a proper and effective transition path and setting up a planned process within the community itself, including all stakeholders, with support from central and local government. One of the recommendations in Jobs After Coal was that the Government set up a unit within MBIE to help manage the transition to low-carbon jobs. This Just Transitions Unit has now been set up, but has focused on oil and gas so far – CANA wants  the Commission to recommend to Government that MBIE widen its focus to coal-mining communities and regions.

CANA views trade unions as important partners in the just transition process, together with iwi, local authorities and business in affected areas. The words “trade union”, however, do not appear at all in the Commission’s advice. Therefore, we want the Commission to acknowledge the central role that New Zealand trade unions and workers will play in the transition from fossil fuels.

11.  Electricity generation

 Distributed electricity generation is viewed positively in the Evidence section of the draft:

Distributed generation refers to a variety of technologies that generate electricity at or near where it will be used, such as solar panels. About 95% of distributed generation is from renewable sources such as wind, geothermal and hydro, and ‘behind the meter’ generation such as rooftop solar.

 These forms of decentralised generation play a role in reducing the amount of electricity that would otherwise have to be transmitted by the grid. This is particularly valuable when it can offset periods of peak demand, and potentially emissions and high electricity prices, and when the grid is limited in some way (for example if a line fails during a storm). The amount of distributed generation in the system is expected to increase as the cost of solar PV and wind generation decreases and more households and communities look for energy sovereignty.

 Community involvement in distributed generation may have social benefits, such as enhanced cohesion, acceptance of development (when there is control over where the generation is located) and self-sufficiency through self-supply. It can also adapt and affect consumer behaviour and energy use.

 For example, iwi/Māori through local marae schemes and rural communities may actively transition to distributed generation for a variety of reasons, including ownership, cost and resilience (particularly if they are in remote areas) and a desire to reduce their emissions.

 In Aotearoa, it can be challenging for owners or would-be investors in distributed generation to access the electricity market. Owners of distributed generation can either sell any generation not used on site to a retailer through a contract or sell it into the market and ‘take’ the wholesale price. It can be difficult to secure the long-term contracts. A liquid hedge market would be important in facilitating this. 

 Given this, it is surprising that the Advice section makes no mention of household rooftop solar, which is subsidised as a public good in other many countries.

Instead, the draft advice prefers wind power, as seen in the graphs on p. 62, and, in the absence of government support, any growth in solar generation seems likely to come from corporate solar farms, rather than small household and community installations. This is clearly anti-competitive.

Commenting on a recent article on renewable power generation in NZ, respected economics professor Geoff Bertram has the following to say about the institutional impediments to such smaller initiatives (emphasis added):

“Tweaking the market settings” won’t really cut it. Clearing the way for distributed solar to get quickly underway requires breaking the united opposition of the big generators and their wholly-owned subsidiary the Electricity Authority, who are still pressing ahead to get increased fixed charges imposed on household consumers as a means of making rooftop solar uneconomic (the very low buy-back rates in the absence of a regulated feed-in tariff were just a first step towards squeezing out small distributed competition to the big guys)…

Basically, we have an industry structure designed and built to entrench and perpetuate monopolistic behaviour, and that broken market is the biggest roadblock to electrifying the economy . A climate change emergency is a recipe for the generator cartel to hold us all to ransom.

 Energy analyst Molly Melhuish expresses a similar view:

MBIE’s scenarios support Government’s fast-track plan for removing the Low Fixed Charge regime… The corporates want every residential consumer to pay around $2/day on their power bill. This is like an electricity tax to fund their growing electricity empire. Their intent is to reduce the per-kilowatt-hour charge from 33c/kWh to 23c/kWh, which will clearly make consumer investment in rooftop solar panels much less economic.

Yet rooftop panels add resilience to our energy supply – a benefit that is ignored in MBIE’s supply-side analyses. Small-scale energy projects, household retrofits and community energy projects all employ people at all levels of skill and experience.

Utility-scale solar competes with rooftop solar, so removing the low fixed charge regime, driving unit prices down from 33c/kWh to 23c/kWh, will be a nail in the coffin of the independent solar installers.

CANA calls for strong Government support for small-scale distributed generation, including photovoltaic (PV) panels & batteries for rooftop solar, if necessary by restructuring the electricity generation industry to reduce the power of the cartel of major players.

Furthermore, we believe the building codes should be revised, to make all new buildings zero-emission, with mandatory solar panels and water tanks.

12.  Green Hydrogen

Whilst CANA supports the Commission’s advice to research the potential role of hydrogen fuel produced from the electrolysis of water by renewable electricity, we oppose the use of hydrogen anywhere that electricity could be used directly.

This is because the process of electrolysing water to hydrogen gas, then compressing, cooling, storing, transporting, and using it is grossly inefficient when compared to simply using the electricity directly.

For example, in passenger vehicles, electricity is more than three times as efficient as hydrogen, and almost six times as efficient as such “electrofuels” as methanol.

NB: New Zealand has been down this wasteful road already, with the “Think Big” projects of the ’80s, particularly the gas -> methanol -> synthetic petrol boondoggle that was apparently designed to use and/or waste as much gas as possible within the thirty-year “Take or Pay” contract for the Maui gas field.

Indeed, the same multinational oil and gas companies that benefitted from that scheme, would also be in line for huge contracts to build the infrastructure for a hydrogen economy, which may provide some explanation as to why the idea of exporting hydrogen to other countries is gaining traction.

CANA wants to see our renewable energy resources used to add value within New Zealand, rather than exported as yet more “frozen goods” in the form of liquid hydrogen or, indeed, as aluminium ingots.

In conclusion, we welcome Rio Tinto’s promised departure, and look forward to their replacement by exciting new sustainable industries in Southland.

CODA

Nau te rourou, naku te rourou, ka ora te iwi – From my food basket and your food basket, there is sufficient for everyone.

The post CLIMATE ACTION FOR AOTEAROA – CANA SUBMISSION TO THE CLIMATE CHANGE COMMISSION, MARCH 2021 appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

http://bit.ly/CCCsubmissionguide.

Right now, we have real opportunity to create the kind of future we wish to have ourselves and pass on to our descendants.

The Climate Change Commission has published their draft advice, which will significantly impact the Government’s climate response.

Up until the 28th March, we have the chance to make submissions to ensure this advice is ambitious and reflects the needs of people and the planet.

The polluters will be making sure their voice is loud through this process, so it’s important we come together and submit with a vision of the more equitable and beautiful world we know is possible.

So, here’s a template to support you in making a submission to the Commission. It takes you through, step by step, and will only take 10-15 mins!

http://bit.ly/CCCsubmissionguide.

The post Guide to making a submission on the Climate Change Commission’s draft Advice to Government 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.

26 July 2020– Coal Action Network Aotearoa today gave a cautious welcome to the Government’s announcement of a $70 million investment to increase electrification of industrial and process heat in the lower South Island.

“Continued mining and burning of coal and other fossil fuels in the midst of a climate crisis is criminal,” said Tim Jones of Coal Action Network Aotearoa. “So we welcome the news that the Government is making a commitment to replace coal-burning heat plant in the South Island with renewable sources of energy.”

“However, major concerns remain. Firstly, we have too many cows, polluting too much water and using way too much synthetic fertiliser – all of which is a major contributor to the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Along with replacing coal, we need to be moving agriculture away from the present industrial dairying model which has done so much harm.

Secondly, using biomass sourced from wood waste is another source of renewable energy provided forests are replanted – and it frees up electricity for other uses. We hope the Government will not neglect the role of sustainably sourced biomass in replacing fossil fuels.”

Turning to the Government’s announcement of a $30 million investigation into a pumped hydro storage scheme at Lake Onslow, Tim Jones said “We do need more storage so we can shut down Huntly’s coal plant, and we shouldn’t even be thinking about new gas as backup, but we are being cautious right now because we are unclear about the impacts, including the effect on the Teviot flathead, a highly endangered native galaxiid fish. Also, the water from this scheme must not be used for irrigation to create yet more dairy farms in country that is not suitable for dairying.”

“Is it time we stopped mining and burning coal in Aotearoa? Absolutely. But in replacing coal, we need to make sure that we’re not creating other environmental problems,” said Tim Jones.

The post CANA responds to the Government’s South Island Electrification Scheme appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

COP25 Madrid was a major win for the big polluters, who, through the countries they have power over, like Australia, the US, Brazil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, managed to block meaningful action in so many ways. Behind pretty much every recalcitrant government is some kind of big industry stopping them from taking action, New Zealand included.

Everyone’s out to make a buck, and if there’s climate rules getting in the way, block ‘em.

The meeting was a chaos of frustration that grew by the day as we saw how the whole thing was unfolding.  Outside the negotiations in the rest of the huge cavernous halls and side events it all started off hopefully. The usual NGO focus on the fossil fuel industry spilled over into more official channels, not least with the UNEP “Production Gap” report – an eye-opening piece of work showing the discrepancy between countries’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. There was a growing recognition that the International Energy Agency’s forecasts had far too much fossil fuels in them, and everybody was talking about how to get out of coal.

By the end of the meeting the COP25 logo was as upset as everyone else.

But inside the negotiations was an entirely different story

Brazil, Australia, Saudi Arabia, managed to stop agreement on the only real thing this meeting had on its agenda – the last of the sections in the Paris Agreement rulebook to be settled, and which was the thing that fell over a year ago in Poland: “Article 6”.

The reason why it’s so hard is because these rules are around the carbon trading, the offsetting, the carryover of credits: these are the rules from which one can create the loopholes, the rules over what credits you can buy, from where. It’s the things governments do instead of actually cutting emissions.

There’s a very clear explanation of the issues at stake by Kate Dooley over on The Conversation, but it boils down to this: the rules are supposed to ensure that carbon trading actually achieves a global reduction in emissions, doesn’t create loopholes and doesn’t stomp all over human and indigenous peoples’ rights.

There was also the proposal that a tiny percentage was shaved off every trade to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to the impacts of climate change, but of course we can’t possibly do something for the good of all can we.

All of that got kicked to next year, and in the process any reference to human and indigenous rights was removed.  Australia still gets to keep its hideous Kyoto Protocol carryover credits – whereby they get to use credits generated through a very dodgy agreement in 1990 to meet their 2030 target, essentially so they don’t have to actually cut emissions.

How did New Zealand behave?

An old hand in these negotiations said to me the only time there has been real progress at a COP is when there’s a leader, or facilitator of a particularly sticky negotiation with the gumption to stand up to the bad guys, and who can draw a line in the sand. This happened in Paris, for example, when the French Presidency ringfenced the 1.5 limit long before the final text came out – stating clearly that it was not up for negotiation, and standing strong behind it – and the Pacific.

For some reason, the Powers That Be put our Minister, James Shaw, with South Africa, in charge of co-facilitating the Article 6 fight. This was despite the fact that he did exactly that job in Poland a year ago – and failed. The Article 6 discussions were only back on the table in Madrid because of their failed conclusion in Katowice, yet the UNFCCC thought it was a good idea to put the same guy in charge, and expect a different outcome.

As someone else pointed out, Shaw is a reasonable man, in fact way too reasonable for this job, prioritising consensus-building over action, process and legal outcome over actually cutting emissions and maintaining the facade of multilateralism over confronting the reality of failure.  Why he got put in charge of the same negotiations the second year in a row remains a mystery.  Did the NZ officials put his name forward?

But either way, he clearly wasn’t the kind of facilitator who could bang heads together, and the failure of Article 6 for the second year in a row is testament to that. Of course it’s not all his fault, but we knew for sure that he was – at least – trying to find a “place” for Australia’s bid to keep its 40-year old carryover, which was unforgiveable.

Let’s be clear: New Zealand needs a “credible” Article 6 so that we can pretend we are meeting our 2030 target through buying credits and offsetting emissions – all the things we have to do because we’ve done so little to actually CUT our emissions over the past 30 years. Article 6 gives us the permission to do this. So it has to look at least a little bit credible.

But I can’t help wondering, if Shaw hadn’t been co-facilitating could he have stood strong and defended the inclusion of indigenous and human rights, language that was discarded for the sake of consensus.  Could he have stood up to the bullies, and stood up for the Pacific like he promised to do as he set out for Madrid two weeks earlier?  I wrote a blog for The Spinoff as James arrived, hoping for the best, and having a bit of a whinge about the NZ Delegation in the first week of the talks, but he didn’t live up to his own words.

He eventually left, on Saturday morning, heading back for a Cabinet meeting on Monday. Later that day, as the  negotiations went on into Saturday night, the Article 6 discussions even shut out the Least Developed Countries and the Alliance of Small Island states. Those fighting for indigenous and human rights were even further from the room.   Then the whole thing ended up falling over.

No call for increased action

The polluters didn’t stop there. They were driving the agendas of those who sought to block consensus even on making a call for all governments to reiterate the need for everyone to increase their 2030 Paris Agreement targets by COP26 in Glasgow next year.

Governments agreed back in Paris that their targets on the table were not enough, and that they would have to increase them, beginning next year. In September the UN Secretary General tried to get governments to come to his climate summit to make those commitments, but only the Marshall Islands has done so.

From hot air to hot water: the Blue Carbon trap

This was also supposed to be the “Blue COP” that would also start to acknowledge the damage climate change is wreaking on our oceans, and the important part their protection plays in the whole climate system.  But the oceans campaigners promoting this blue COP are largely oblivious to the years of governments rorting the system through land-based sinks.

They haven’t seen how much governments simply cannot be trusted in this regard: when you start counting how much carbon is sequestered in ANYTHING, be it a forest or a field or a coral reef, mangrove system or seagrass meadow, then there will be governments wanting to use it to offset their fossil fuels.

It doesn’t take rocket science to work out that this is why Indonesia, Australia and Chile are all wide-eyed at the notion of ocean protection being brought into the UNFCCC and listed as part of government targets.  And why tiny countries like the Seychelles and others are keen on getting the cash from these governments for ocean protection.

Blocking on loss and damage

In another key area, the US blocked any meaningful progress on the review of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage. Industrialised country governments are terrified of being forced to litigation to pay for the damage they’ve caused to the world’s most vulnerable countries from the climate change they’ve already caused.

There’s a kind of vicious circle going on here: they refused to take action, and refuse to move ahead on Loss & Damage, which results in an overall increase of the damage they are causing and will continue to cause that they refuse to take responsibility for. Thing is, if they took action to reduce the damage, there’d be less damage to pay for, right?

As Ian Fry from Tuvalu noted in the closing ceremony when he was talking about the US – a government that’s walking away from the Paris Agreement – blocking on this issue:

“There are millions of people all around the world who are already suffering from the impacts of climate change. Denying this fact could be interpreted by some to be a crime against humanity.”

Standing with the Pacific?

The catchcry of the New Zealand government’s position heading to COP was that one of government’s main mandates was to “stand with the Pacific.”

I have been mystified by this ever since Shaw announced it. Because the Pacific Islands are part of a wider group – the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in these negotiations and they have very clear policies. But nobody from AOSIS has seen Shaw try to reach out to AOSIS, to sit down with them and strategise together before a COP to align their goals.

New Zealand never takes the side of the Pacific at a COP, not on Loss & Damage, not on Article 6, and not even on ambition. And by taking a neutral role in Article 6, James couldn’t fight for the Pacific Island States either.

I leave you with the voices of civil society, who had to stay to the bitter end to have their voices heard.  Among them were the People Forum on Climate Change’s  Kera Sherwood O’Regan and Generation Zero’s Adam Currie: their speeches caused tears to stream down not just my face but a lot of others besides, as we limped to the end of yet another COP that has failed them.

Kera’s powerful plea echoed in my ears as I travelled back across the world to Aotearoa, land of carbon credits and offsets and creative accounting: 

“Get. Out. Of. Our. Way.”

The post COP25: a crime against humanity appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

In April,  the media reported that Fonterra has carried out a trial of burning 100% waste wood in one of its boilers at Te Awamutu, a large coal-fired milk drying plant in the Waikato. (The rest of the boilers at that plant run on gas.)

We very much hope that this is the start of Fonterra delivering on their promises to reduce their fossil fuel use in meaningful ways.

For some six years CANA has been challenging Fonterra to replace the coal in its milk drying plants with renewables, especially with waste wood which is abundant in the forestry industry, much of it left to rot on skid sites after logging. The dairy industry is the second largest user of coal in this country and most of that is Fonterra. But our efforts over the years have been answered by claims that it isn’t technically possible; then that it is too expensive; then that there isn’t enough waste wood, none of this accompanied by any numbers.

Three years ago CANA met at his request with Robert Spurway, Chief Operating Officer, Global Operations, who reports directly to the CEO, and his Fonterra colleagues.. We were hopeful of finding some common ground, but there seemed to be none.  He repeated that Fonterra’s growth was paramount. We replied that the climate we leave to our children is paramount for us. I met with the late John Wilson, chair of their Shareholders’ Council, and put our case to him. He replied that his farmer shareholders just wouldn’t accept our suggestions.

As climate change became front and centre of public debate, Fonterra announced it would convert its smallest plant at Stirling to electricity.

Meanwhile the company had sought and received consent for a huge new drying plant at Studholme which would burn “up to” 20% wood in a mix with coal. “Up to” means they could use anything from 0% to 20%. They refused to answer our questions – or release advice – about what information they had  on how much wood there was within a reasonable distance of the plant (up to 100 km is the usual cut off), and would not release their “request for proposals” they issued to the wood industry.

We suspect Fonterra  only asked for quotes for 20%. Any benefit from that wood would have been swamped by the huge increase in their coal burn in two very large boilers. We remain confused about why, when they cut the boilers down from two to one, the remaining boiler couldn’t co-fire with 40% biomass, if, as they said at the hearing,  availability of wood was the problem.

Next, Fonterra announced it would reduce emissions at its  tiny Brightwater plant near Nelson, co-firing its coal boiler with wood (funded by the taxpayer). CANA has had extensive discussions with engineers who design and work with wood fired boilers and we are told that co-firing is an inefficient and not very clean burning option. Boilers work best when they are designed for a particular fuel and are fed that consistently. They don’t perform well on mixes, particularly if the mix is changed according to prices at the time.

That the company managed to get precious EECA funding for this conversion is extraordinary. What’s more disappointing is the fact that this plant is right in the middle of Nelson’s horticultural area and in a forestry region: a biomass bonanza in terms of availability.

CANA has been in email discussion with Fonterra’s Carolyn Mortland, Fonterra’s Director of Sustainability, who says the newly-converted boiler at  Te Awamutu is 43MW – much larger than anything else they have attempted, and will be 100% run on wood pellets.

Pellets were chosen rather than the much cheaper wood chip or green waste because Fonterra doesn’t have the capital to buy a new, purpose-built boiler and are converting an existing coal boiler. This means  they must keep the fuel very dry to get the high temperatures they need. So: a very high running cost boiler, but minimising the capital cost of the conversion. (Fonterra has always struggled with the requirement to pay out most of its earnings to the shareholder farmers in the milk price. It therefore has little in the way of retained earnings, as well as very high debt so can’t borrow the capital it would need to finance a new high quality boiler.)

Wood pellets being used by Fonterra instead of coal.

Pellets also have a very high embedded energy cost, from grinding, compression, drying and transport.

We enquired whether the plant could revert to running on coal if that was the cheapest option. We are told that would take a re-conversion of the hardware – possible but not fast enough to change from day to day. So it seems we can assume that boiler will run 100% on wood, which is good news and a step in the right direction.

But there won’t be sufficient pellets for Fonterra to entirely “Quit Coal”, which is our ask of the company in the face of the climate crisis..   

Fonterra has promised a 30% cut in emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050.   For that to happen, it needs to do several things:

• The Fonterra Board needs to make the decision to never build the huge coal-fired Studholme plant, consented but not constructed, and to never build any more coal boilers at all. Fonterra’s commitment at the moment is to build no new coil boilers from 2030.
• instead, Fonterra should focus on less volume and higher value milk products
• Improve its financial management to the point where a bank will lend the company  enough to replace its oldest boilers with new ones designed to run cleanly on any kind of biomass waste, much cheaper in the long run, with no risk of insufficient fuel;
• Support their farmer suppliers to reduce cow numbers by 20%, as some already have, leading to more milk production per cow, healthier animals, lower greenhouse gases, and higher profits.

We would like to see a schedule of proposed plant conversions and replacements, starting obviously with the oldest and least efficient, and eventually including their gas fired plant, leading to carbon zero in 2050. It is a very big ask, but that is NZ policy now, and essential to get the climate on a safe track.

Replacing 43 MW of coal (about half the size of the Darfield plant and much bigger than Stirling and Brightwater combined) with 100% wood is not trivial, but there is still a long way to go.

In terms of quitting coal, Fonterra is 8% down, 92% to go. CANA looks forward to welcoming the next step along this path – soon.

The post Fonterra: a useful step forward? appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

We didn’t really feel like spelling out all of this to a magazine that is a mouthpiece for industry, and that has spent a lot of words and time trashing CANA and our policies. 

Bernie Napp, Editor, Inside Resources

The questions amounted to an a,b,c of mining industry spin around coal and minerals.  Inside Resources is owned by Freeman Media, organisers of the Minerals Forum held in Dunedin. This industry rag cannot really characterise itself as objective media, as it has proven over and over again. Bernie, after a short sojourn at MBIE, used to be the main media guy at Straterra, the co-organiser of the forum.  

These are the questions from Inside Resources. Instead of replying to Bernie Napp, we decided to publish this as a Q&A on our website, as it provides a useful resource for campaigners.  This way, our words will stand for themselves. And it won’t be behind the Inside Resources paywall.  

Inside Resources: You say:

“Most important of all is to stop any new investment in fossil fuel plant. All new plant should be renewably fuelled, or this whole exercise is a waste of time.”

Are you aware that coal consumption is only five per cent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions?

Would it not make more sense for you to be Transport Action Network Aotearoa, or Agriculture Action Network Aotearoa?

CANA: Of course we are aware of the relative contribution  of coal to climate change. That’s our job. If we want to solve climate change, we have to address all emissions in New Zealand.

The same argument could be discussed through tax: a single person’s contribution is very small, so why should they bother paying? It all adds up. Just as New Zealand’s emissions are small compared with, say, those of India, but together, all the smaller emitters make up 30% of global emissions.

We chose to work on coal because globally it is the biggest source of CO2 emissions, it has the highest greenhouse gas emissions per unit of useful energy,  it is still expanding, and there are good alternatives now for almost every use.

Coal emissions are also a major problem for health, with a significant contribution to respiratory and heart disease and stroke. We have all worked on transport and agriculture at various times, but there is no other group dedicated to working on coal so sorry, we are not going away.

And – NZ could easily be the leader, the inspiration for the world – coal free Aotearoa!

Inside Resources: You say: “A mandatory carbon price of at least $50/tonne, raised at regular and pre-announced intervals to reach $100 within a couple of years, is needed to drive the urgent and significant emissions reductions that must be made.”

You have undertaken an analysis to underpin this view? Have you interviewed people in the business of drying milk, making steel, cement, burnt and hydrated lime?

With the benefit of hindsight, do the submissions by Fonterra, NZ Steel, Golden Bay Cement, and Graymont lead you to revise your views?

CANA:  Our starting point here is that we are in a climate emergency. We should have acted 20 years ago, when the transition could have been more gradual, but this was blocked by the lobbying of vested interests.

Provided there is a technically feasible alternative, it’s frankly not our job to work out whether a particular industry will still be profitable. If replacing coal with renewables is inconvenient and costly, the market will sort out who survives and who doesn’t. You do believe in the market, right?

A thesis at Otago uni a few years ago found that a carbon price of $50/tonne would lead to most heat plant replacing coal with wood waste. Technology has improved since then.

CANA: You mention steel making, and we acknowledge that steel is the hardest place to replace coal, and will probably be the last to go. But there are some answers already.

A lot more steel could be recycled, using electric arc furnaces to melt it rather than blast furnaces. Many uses of steel could be replaced by low carbon materials – for example, laminated pre-hardened wood beams could replace steel in medium rise buildings. This is NZ developed technology. We could grow an export industry around it.

There is also pioneering “green coke” made from wood which could replace coal in blast furnaces. This needs more R&D but could be ready in time to meet our carbon targets. A company in Sweden is already making steel from hydrogen using renewable electricity.

Inside Resources : Do you accept the contention that without coal it is challenging to reach the high temperatures necessary for many industrial processes?

CANA: We are not engineers but we do talk with them, and we note that there are very large wood waste fired boilers in Europe reaching these high temperatures and burning very cleanly. The key seems to be quality, purpose-built boilers rather than taking the cheapest option or converting a coal boiler, or worse still, co-firing wood and coal.

Inside Resources : Do you agree with Fonterra that it needs cheap electricity, to be able to convert affordably to electricity at its processing sites? If not, why not?

CANA: We have never particularly advocated electricity for process heat. Where it is available without destabilising the grid, it is a good option. If Tiwai Point aluminium smelter closes, there will be a substantial amount of hydro available for other purposes. Indeed Fonterra itself has stated that it doesn’t really consider electricity a good source.

Inside Resources : How would enough woody biomass be made available within the next two years for sites to transition? Have you done an analysis on where the material would come from, its quality, and its cost?

CANA: this is a very good question, one we have been trying to answer for several years, with the industry being spectacularly unhelpful.

We have talked to the wood industry who tell us there is a lot of wood just left to rot in the forest, eg on skid sites, because there is no market. The easy wood, eg offcuts from sawmills, is mostly already used. How much is available depends on:

• where it is in relation to the user; wood is more expensive to transport than coal  (the reason fossil fuels were developed is that they are a more concentrated energy source then renewables – but their time is over.) A generally accepted rule is that transport distances of 100km or less are workable.
• what consumers are willing to pay for it. That can only  be established by calling for proposals and a proper tender process.

Fonterra stated categorically to the Studholme hearing (into Fonterra’s application to build two coal-fired boilers at its dairy factory just outside Waimate) that only enough wood was available to fire 20% of their proposed milk plant.

We asked to see the question they had asked wood suppliers, and their answers, we asked Fonterra directly, we asked them at the hearing, and we wrote to the Chair of the Fonterra Shareholders’ Council but no information was forthcoming. Nor have they provided it since.

We strongly suspect there was no proper Request For Proposal conducted, or that they only asked for a price to supply the 20% they wanted to use. We found it curious that even after Fonterra, during the consent hearing, halved the size of the proposed plant from two to one coal boiler, there was still only enough wood available for 20% of that (when there had been 20% available for two boilers earlier).

There was similar secrecy around the fueling of Fonterra’s Darfield plant but we happen to know there was enough wood available for that within an economic distance but Fonterra chose to stick with what they were used to. Climate change just doesn’t figure in their thinking, and that’s why we need a price on carbon.  If coal is more expensive, they will look for alternatives.

Inside Resources:  You say: “The largest barrier to the use of biomass for process heat is one that is not listed in this section of the discussion paper: the lack of a carbon price that means that companies pay the true cost of their greenhouse gas emissions. With such a price in place, companies that currently emphasise the barriers listed in this section may well find that these barriers were less substantial than they currently claim.”

You make a fair point. Have you considered the fact that less than 20 percent of global emissions are covered by any sort of carbon price, and that sectoral coverage in overseas jurisdictions is generally narrower than in New Zealand?

CANA: Of course we want to see all countries and firms subject to a carbon price but we have to start somewhere. If everyone waits for everyone else, no-one will do anything. Increasing numbers of countries are introducing a carbon price across sectors. India is one. If India can do it, why can’t New Zealand?

Inside Resources: What do you think about the lack of a level playing field internationally on carbon pricing? What should NZ do in this situation? Do you think it is fair that NZ pays a carbon price, and most of the rest of the world does not?

Do you think it is fair on Golden Bay Cement that cement made in Japan has a modest carbon charge on only one-quarter of its emissions, that of fossil fuel consumption?

If yes, then that is good for Holcim which no longer makes cement in New Zealand and imports it from Japan.

If no, then should Holcim pay a carbon surcharge on imported cement?

CANA:  There is a lot of discussion about this internationally. The usual remedy is border adjustments – imports from countries with no carbon price carry a levy; this is used to help industries who are paying a carbon price here and competing overseas with those that don’t.

These should be transitional until other countries change. No-one should get an economic advantage, as we have been doing, from ignoring climate change. We already have provision in the ETS for assistance to industries regarded as  “competitiveness at risk” internationally.

Inside Resources: You say “Phase out coal mining and coal usage by 2027, initially by opposing new and expanded coal mines.”

CANA: Yes, we chose that date a few years ago – and argued over it at the time – because most of the consents for big mines expire in that year or earlier. We have never advocated closing an operating mine, but waiting for them to deplete and their workforce to retire.

However as climate change accelerates, that date might have to come forward; and with new mines still being opened they face the prospect of having to close soon after opening.

Experts say that the OECD needs to get out of coal by 2030, and the developing world 2040.

Inside Resources: You will be aware that NZ imports around 450,000 tonnes of coal a year because domestic production cannot keep up with domestic demand, including for back-up electricity generation. Do you support NZ importing coal?

CANA: Quite frankly, this is rubbish. It is not New Zealand’s decision to import coal, but a commercial one, mainly by Genesis to run the Huntly power station. They import coal from Indonesia because it is cheaper. Everything is driven by price.

When it is hit with a $50/tonne climate price industry will move to the next cheapest fuel, or in the case of Huntly, close the plant and build some of the already consented wind and geothermal plants sitting waiting because it i so cheap to import coal. Domestic demand is driven by the availability f cheap coal. There are many other alternatives for electricity back up without Huntly which was supposed to have closed years ago.

Inside Resources :  what analysis have you done to show that coal users can remain in business after 2027?  If they can’t remain in business, how will NZ earn the shortfall in economic activity that would occur?

CANA:  As you don’t seem to have grasped yet, this is a climate emergency. If a firm can’t stay in business and meet our zero carbon goals then it should be replaced by a business that can. Necessity is the mother of invention and coal belongs in the 20th century.

If we allow climate change to proceed unabated, most NZ firms will go out of business because of the impacts from climate change.

We should all be on the same side here.  Coal users had better start doing their analysis. Not our job.

We’d like to finish with this short message from Bill Nye The Science Guy.  He puts it into the kind of perspective we should all be adopting. 

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