Remember when Jacinda Ardern called climate change "my generation's nuclear free moment"? From that tough talk, you'd expect urgent and real action to stop fossil fuels and reduce emissions. But when they banned offshore oil exploration, existing permits were left unchanged. And now foreign oil giant OMV is planning to drill a series of offshore wells in some of the roughest seas in New Zealand, risking not just a discovery and burning more unsustainable carbon, but also an environmental disaster:
Austrian oil giant OMV has unveiled one of the most ambitious oil and gas drilling programmes proposed in New Zealand.
It plans possibly three exploration and seven follow-up appraisal wells off Otago's coast in the Great South Basin (GSB).
The 10 oil and gas prospects are within a 100km-150km arc, southeast of Dunedin.
OMV has applied to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) for a marine discharge consent to release contaminants to sea, the application being made public today.
And meanwhile, Oil Minister Megan Woods is merrily extending the permits of other polluters, so they can do the same. So much for urgent action to stop fossil fuels. Instead, its business as usual - that business being destroying the future for the private profit of a few.
This government is not going to save us. Its not even going to try. If we want that to happen, we need to vote for a party which will take action: one which will end oil, end coal, and do it properly, rather than trying to protect incumbent profits. Labour will not do that. If we want a future, we need to vote for someone else.
