MEDIA RELEASE: Oil and gas block offers – paving the way for runaway climate change

The Government has doubled the area for oil and gas exploration, only two days after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has put out its latest report, warning that climate change is already affecting communities across the globe and could become catastrophic, if we don’t curb our greenhouse gas emissions drastically without further delay.

“The world is crying out for the urgent transition away from fossil fuels. According to the International Energy Agency it is only safe to burn one third of the fossil fuels that companies have already discovered, so going looking for more oil and gas is just paving the way for runaway, catastrophic climate change”, says Verena Maeder from Nelson based group Clean Energy Action. “Simon Bridges isn’t just the Minister for Energy and Resources, he is also holds the associate portfolio for climate change. We don’t understand how he can reconcile his actions and ignore what top climate scientists from all over the world are warning us about. We will not be spared from the effects of climate change here in New Zealand, and an instable climate will be bad for our economy. There is no such thing as ‘environmentally responsible’ development of fossil fuels.”

The block offers that have gone out for tender now add up to an area one-and-a-half times the area of New Zealand. Apart from enormous offshore areas out from Otago, Canterbury, Wellington and Auckland, further block offers have been made in the Taranaki basin, bringing the exploration areas substantially closer to Nelson. Onshore offers now also include 6,752.19 km2 of the Victoria Forest Park and the Mt Richmond Forest Park, which is Public Conservation Land.

“Investing in oil and gas will lock us into decades of high carbon economic development and will do little to ensure our energy security. If oil is found, it will not be sold in New Zealand. Instead, we should be capitalizing on our own innovative clean energy industry. There are more jobs and more profits in clean-tech, simply because it is future proofed and home-grown. Instead of pawning off our finite resources, putting pressure on our conservation areas and contributing to climate change, we should be developing solutions and sell our expertise.”

ENDS

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