Two very different views on the business of sustainability
By Bryan Walker,
It’s difficult not to become repetitive when blogging about climate change. The basic science is well-established. The dangers global warming poses to human society are clear and in some places present.
The solutions lie with drastically cutting the level of greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to changes already unavoidable. The mitigation solution in particular continues to be resisted by vested interests and their political allies.
I’m conscious of having expressed each of these facts many times over in a variety of forms over the past three years. And now I’m about to repeat myself within a month of last writing about the contradiction in New Zealand government thinking.
It was BusinessNZ chief executive Phil O’Reilly’s article in the Herald on Tuesday that provoked me. He was bullish at the start of a new year on New Zealand’s opportunity to earn new wealth. It’s our hard commodities – minerals and petroleum – which offer outstanding rewards. We are “blessed with iron sands, coal, petroleum, phosphate, precious metals and rare earths”. We already take royalties and tax revenues from the sector, and O’Reilly claims we could be earning much more by opening access to more of our mineral and petroleum estate. It needs to be done responsibly of course, and we could be leaders in that direction:
We could create a minerals and petroleum sector with standards for sustainability, safety and environmental protection that are the highest in the world.
From a climate change perspective let’s be clear about what O’Reilly is proposing. He wants the search for and extraction of fossil fuels to play a major part in the New Zealand economy. He’s looking for a great surge in activity in this direction. The high standards of environmental protection he writes of clearly do not include climate protection. This is not surprising. Fossil fuel use is inimical to climate protection. The only way fossil fuels can protect the climate is by remaining in the ground unused. All the care in the world to prevent oil spills or restore mined landscape doesn’t alter the fact that when that fuel is burned it will increase the level of global warming.
O’Reilly urges readers to participate in the review of the Crown Minerals Act which is currently under way and which will invite public consultation this year. I had a look at the Ministry of Economic Development website to see what that involved. There’s nothing there to reassure anyone alarmed by climate change. The first aim of the review:
Align the regulatory regime with the Government’s Economic Growth Agenda and regulatory reform agenda.
And the Economic Growth Agenda to which it is to be aligned?
The Government has set a target for New Zealand to catch up with Australia’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (currently 76 per cent) and for exports to be 40 per cent of GDP (currently 31 per cent) by 2025. The Government has announced a broad economic growth plan to achieve this. The plan includes focusing on lifting the growth of particular sectors, including the petroleum and minerals sectors, which have the greatest potential to contribute to a step change in New Zealand’s economic performance and where the potential impact of government action is likely to be very high.
This is all spelt out at greater length in the full discussion document which contains no mention of climate change, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, or carbon dioxide. In other words the government is determined to go ahead with fossil fuel development as a key factor in their plans for economic growth and no consideration of climate change will be permitted to stop them. Phil O’Reilly, representing New Zealand’s largest business advocacy body, is very much in step.
What is so wrong about all this is not that we are continuing to use fossil fuels. Our economy is built around them and no one is claiming that we can switch off using them immediately. But what one expects from an educated government and business community is a plan to move towards a low-carbon economy with all possible speed and determination, not an all-out drive to discover and exploit fossil fuels justified by the wealth it will create. To do so is morally obtuse since we know the dangers such a course holds for humanity. It is also likely to prove economically self-defeating because it pushes investment in a direction which has dead end written all over it.
O’Reilly does not represent all New Zealand businesses. Phillip Mills of Pure Advantage carried a very different message in the Herald in November, urging politicians to plan for a very different future from that extolled by O’Reilly.
Rather than risking our environment and reputation by opening marginally accessible petroleum reserves to foreign oil corporations, the emphasis should be on investing in those industries that can provide us with an advantage in rapidly emerging markets such as renewable energy and the businesses that spin off that, from electric vehicles to cloud computing.
He wrote that the Pure Advantage Trust has recently commissioned a group of world-leading economists to review New Zealand’s green growth opportunities and make recommendations as to how we can build a greener, wealthier nation. They plan to release the group’s findings early this year. Those findings might prove a useful counter to the kind of results the government obviously expects from its review of the Crown Minerals Act.
The task of turning governments worldwide away from fossil fuel exploration and extraction seems herculean. But we have no alternative than to keep at it. It would be dereliction to allow them to carry on regardless with no protest from the portion of the population which understands how truly dire are the circumstances many governments continue to ignore.
I’ll endure the knowledge that I’m repeating myself and say again that the simple fact of the matter is that we can’t extract all our fossil fuel resources without producing severe climate consequences. Exporting them for someone else to burn alters that fact not one whit. Economic development minister Steven Joyce and the energy and resources minister Phil Heatley should be facing up to that reality every day and requiring their Cabinet colleagues to do likewise.
This post originally appeared on Sciblogs.
Comments
Miles
Bryan Walker states that there is 'no mention of climate change, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, or carbon dioxide' in a government document. Bryan seems to have missed significant science from CERN in particular that points to solar effect on cosmic rays as being the main cause of climate change. The preliminary report states that there is 50% to 100% chance that it is the sun. It is still a theory in the sense that the first report is indicative but more work is yet required. It is the most likely to be probable and soon likely to be proven as a scientific fact. Their report suggests that CO2 causation of global warming which is ALSO A THEORY is likely not involved in climate change to any noticeable degree at all. It is this scientific development that means governments around the world are quietly shelving any plans about CO2 and global warming until the public catches up with the science and until the final CERN report comes out in about five years. To save UN embarrasment, governments will simply do nothing about climate change. It will be a case of neither confirm nor deny.
Given this situation, the rest of the article is irrelevant. Calls are being made in USA to stop subsidising electric vehicles as being a waste of tax-payer funds.
In addition, there is further science developing that what is termed fossil fuels is no such thing. We were told in primary school that oil comes from fallen trees and dinosaurs. Some science reports are now disputing that theory.
The new Bakken and other fields in USA will provide cheap gas and oil for a quarter of a millenium. NZ and most other countries have similar deep oil and gas reserves. Eco-Luddites would prefer us to freeze in our winters rather than use our technology to make life better for all. Wealth from oil and gas can provide far greater security for the poor than all the warm fuzzies from a feeling of eco purity which does not exist in nature. Oil may be from derived bacterial action on deep gases under pressure. It is a natural phenomenon. Again, the theory is yet to be proven but it may or even probably will end up that oil is a renewable resource - as long as the earth exists that is. So much for peak oil.
Andy Kenworthy
@Miles: Please cite your sources from peer reviewed journals.
I prefer my government's policy to be based on actual currently published peer reviewed science by the world's leading experts, rather than vague references to mysterious “reports in progress” and “some science” that is “yet to be proved”.
I think the real reason action on climate change is being held back is, in the words of a much quoted Sudanese farmer: “You can't wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.”
Jennifer N
Great article pointing out the situation at play in NZ at the moment.
Florian
The thing is, New Zealand is a far away country whose economic success (tourism, food exports) depends on how it is perceived overseas. If public opinion in key trade markets such as the UK, US, AUS, China shifts towards low carbon, climate responsible and sustainable (which it does), it will be the credibility of 'clean, green' determining the competiveness - and future - of NZ.
We live in a global, interconnected and informed world where individual kiwis' 'believe' - or not - in CO2-induced global warming hardly matters. There is an enormous opportunity for NZ to build up a modern, green economy. If it fails, many of the young and bright, the next generation, will continue to leave the country as soon as they possibly can.
Chris Thorpe
Interesting read, particularly the ensuing comments. Florian hits the nail on the head. I fear for NZ continuing to fall further behind Australia upon hearing the economic plan of Keys government. It's a plan for growth, but all in the wrong direction. What's more, the plan will impact heavily upon its highest performance areas: its brand and exports.
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