The science of climate change is clear: we need to stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, and we cannot burn even a fraction of those already discovered. So naturally, Labour is offering oil companies more exploration permits:
The Government is offering companies another opportunity to search for new reserves of oil and gas, despite scientific warnings the world has enough.Oh, and they've granted another offshore exploration permit as well, despite their 2018 ban. And while they'll claim this decision was forced on them by a judicial review, the fault is still entirely theirs, for not including an appropriate transition clause in the ban legislation ensuring that it extinguished all rights and applied to any outstanding application. Because that's what we need to do to solve this problem - we can't grandfather existing polluters. Instead, we need to legislatively extinguish their permits with no compensation, and do it as quickly as possible (allowing some time for transition to cleaner fuels). Anything less is a death sentence, and a government which fails to act are murderers.Climate activists said the move was “disturbing” and “completely irresponsible” – and vowed to fight efforts to search for and dig up fossil fuels.
The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment has invited parties to apply for oil and gas exploration permits in Taranaki.
The announcement comes a week after climate scientists issued an urgent warning to the world: to leave fossil fuels in the ground to avoid dangerous levels of planetary heating.
