Once again, the current government shows how much they despise proper democratic process and how little they care about the thoughts of their constituents.
That on top of the #WarOnNature they keep waging with every decision they announce.
They are pushing the Crown’s Minerals Amendment Bill as quickly as they possibly can in a bid to avoid scrutiny. They have allowed submissions until Oct 1st.
Let’s be real: 4 days is barely enough time to read the damn bill.
Most of us don’t have that time. Most of us don’t know enough to make a proper, in-depth submission. I know I don’t. And yet.
But this is important. Ending fossil fuels should be the over riding goal of a human society willing to survive the climate crisis.
This bill aims to do the exact opposite.
We need to make as many submissions as possible: rushed, toughtful, simple, complex, half-assed or thorough. Whatever you can manage, we need as many of them and as authentic as we can possibly write them.
So here is my contribution, so you too can use this as a base to write your own submission. Or you can go and take advice from these suggestions from people far more informed and articulate than I am, or this submission sample from the team at Greenpeace Aotearoa, or this one from the Green Party.
Remember, it doesn’t need to be long or involved. If all you can muster is a sentence or two politely suggesting a good place where the rolled up bill can be comfortably stored by one or several of the ministers, then that’s fair enough.
It just needs to be your words, your thoughts, so it counts as an individual submission.
A brief background
The Bill aims to restart offshore oil and gas exploration and weaken the requirement for oil companies to pay for the clean-up after they finish work.
It seeks to overturn the 2018 Oil and Gas exploration ban from the previous Labour Government. This was arguably the most significant single achievement of the Ardern government in terms of concrete environmental action.
When it was passed it made New Zealand one of the leaders on this type of action. Since then other countries have followed, realising it is the right (and easy) thing to do. What an embarrassment it is to now be turning back from that achievement.
This ban is often mischaracterised in bad faith, saying it bans ALL Oil and Gas exploitation. As much as I wish this was the case, it is not.
It only bans NEW exploration permits. Anything granted before 2018 is to be honoured. This means there is still plenty of a buffer before we are truly fossil free.
The energy needs argument is nonsensical too. New Zealand is already almost completely powered by renewable sources, and the oil produced here is not refined or used locally. It goes to foreign markets.
It is unrealistic and goes against current scientific advice
On top of that, the average time between exploration and exploitation of oil fields is about 16 years. And deep sea exploration is difficult, expensive, slow and risky. The most serious oil spills happen on this stage (remember Deep Water Horizon?).
So even if this bill passes, it will be 16 years or so before any oil that is found (if any at all) can be extracted and used and sold. That is 2040 at least, a time when we should be well on our way of kicking our fossil fuel addiction if we are to maintain our international commitments.
Scientists have been abundantly clear: to have any chance of stabilising the climate, the world cannot afford to burn even known reserves, let alone new ones.
New Zealand is not ready to respond to an oil spill
Should an accident happen, and due to the depth exploration would need to happen in New Zealand, it is probable it will, we do not have the capacity to respond adequately.
This would be an absolute catastrophe not only for the global climate, but for the local ocean environment. The Rena oil spill was bad enough, and it was a single tanker capsizing. A disaster in a deep sea exploration facility would likely be orders of magnitude worse.
The amount and spread of pollutants would overwhelm even a well prepared, properly equipped response operation. We have three old boats. She’ll be alright, eh?
Are Fossil fool companies even interested anymore?
After a long and hard fought campaign to stop oil in New Zealand, it is hard to imagine any of those companies enticed to come back on the uncertain promise of finding oil that would be too deep, too low quality and too scarce to be worth the effort of drilling it out.
Furthermore, the resistance to fossil fuels may not be as visible these days, but it may wake up and cost them a lot more money and time.
If the government gets their way, the people of New Zealand, would be obligated to purchase these expensive, inefficient and dirty sources of energy while subsidising their operation and insuring them against any future overturning of their permits. Also, who do you think will pay for the cleanup once they are gone or things go wrong?
We deserve a better future. We can have a better present.
As the world looks to ways to clean up their acts, decarbonise, streamline their economies and electrify their transport and production needs, we seem to be heading the wrong way.
We could easily choose a clean sustainable future, where we produce cheap and plentiful energy from the sun, wind, hydro and geothermal sources. Where the wars and oil barons overseas can’t extort and have undue influence in our well-being and the functioning of our societies. Where we are truly independent and free as a nation to power our industry, transport and research the ways we see fit, building our own capacity and in turn generating a sustainable economy of innovative, high skilled jobs, ready to respond to a climate changed world.
But our government lacks the vision, the imagination and the courage to lead this way. They can’t see beyond the ways of centuries past, where oil was the be all and end all of economies, peace and war. Where reckless depredation of the environment had no visible consequences.
We know better now, we deserve so much better. Our kids deserve so much better.
Do not pass this embarrassment of a bill, do not condemn us to depend on war-mongering, decrepit fossil fools for decades more.
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