New report shows coal has no role

Forest & Bird says a significant new report released this morning shows that Bathurst Resource’s planned open cast coal mine on the West Coast’s Denniston Plateau is not just in the wrong place but that coal mining will never deliver the ongoing benefits promised.

The independent conservation organisation says the Jobs After Coal: A Just Transition for New Zealand Communities report – prepared by the Coal Action Network – should serve as the starting point for New Zealand’s long-overdue transition to a clean economy.

“Coal mining is not sustainable by any measure, either in terms of the environment, climate change, social wellbeing or economics,” says Forest & Bird Top of the South Field Officer Debs Martin.

“As we have seen, neither Solid Energy nor Bathurst Resources has been able to break the boom and bust cycle that coal mining has brought to the West Coast. Solid Energy has suffered financial difficulty and has shed hundreds of jobs in recent times. And fluctuations in international commodity prices have put Bathurst’s planned Denniston mine on indefinite hold.

“It is high time the subsidies and handouts that go into coal, oil and gas were instead channelled into levelling the playing field for their low-carbon alternatives. The climate crisis demands that the transition away from fossil fuels begins now,” Debs Martin says.

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