No time for complacency

The Green Party is calling for stronger policies on fuel efficiency and public transport, as well as a moratorium on new coal mines, if New Zealand is to stabilise its greenhouse gas emissions.

“Far from approaching the Government’s aspiration of “carbon neutrality”, or nearing Nationals’ target of a 50 percent reduction, our energy emissions today are nearly 50 percent higher than in 1990. This is simply unsustainable,” Green Party Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says.

“Even rising oil prices are failing to prevent the relentless rise in emissions from transport, although the rate of increase has slowed. Emissions from transport make up the largest component of our energy emissions, and the vast bulk of these are from road transport.

One of the largest increases, almost 50 percent, is in fugitive emissions from coal mining (methane escaping during production). This reflects an increase in coal production for export, which is set to rise even further as new mine developments such as Pike River and Spring Creek go into full production.

“New Zealand does not escape the climate change effects from coal just because it is exported and burnt overseas. While these emissions are not included in the report, we have a moral responsibility, even if not a financial liability, to reduce them,” Ms Fitzsimons says. “The time has come to admit that continuing to develop new mines is not a sustainable future for New Zealand or anywhere else.

“It is also worth bearing in mind this report only includes energy emissions. It does not encompass agricultural emissions such as methane and nitrous oxides from animals – these make up around half of all emissions.

Emissions from thermal electricity generation have decreased slightly (1.4 percent), despite electricity generation increasing 0.9 percent between 2005 and 2006. There are several factors to explain this, including an increase in renewable energy production, a relatively wet winter in 2006, and E3P gas displacing some of the coal generation at Huntly.

“However, we must be careful that electricity demand doesn’t keep rising to a point where we are forced to use both the old coal and new gas generators. We should seize this opportunity to progressively shut down one unit of the coal powered station at a time, while keeping capacity available for emergencies and dry winters,” Ms Fitzsimons says.