COP27: The Government tells the world no more oil and gas is needed – but it can’t stop letting companies dig

New Zealand’s climate ambassador says it’s “just crazy” for rich countries to open up new supplies of fossil fuels. Yet just this year, the Government awarded new oil and gas exploration permits – and fought for its right to do so in court. Olivia Wannan reports.

Christmas dinner hosts have to make a delicate calculation: how much food will be needed to last the day, so that no one goes hungry, but there’s no expensive, unnecessary food leftover.

Climate analysts do a similar, but global, stocktake: working out how much oil, gas and coal is going to be needed before green energy can take over. Too little and people could go cold, hungry or stranded. But dig up too much and the resulting pollution will overcook the planet.

In report after report, experts have concluded the world has enough fossil fuels.

In fact, we’ll need to leave significant amounts of the oil, gas and coal we’ve already discovered in the ground to avoid dangerous levels of global heating.

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But like that wee voice in your head convincing you to invest in extra roast vegetables and spare boxes of mince pies to be on the safe side, governments are finding it hard to know when to stop.

Of the 197 countries at the UN climate summit opening today, just seven (and one Canadian province) have pledged to end oil and gas extraction.

New Zealand has a foot in both camps. In 2018, the Government stopped issuing permits for offshore oil and gas exploration. But officials have continued to issue permits for land-based fossil fuel searches in Taranaki.

It’s spent four and half years reviewing whether to also stop granting onshore permits, with no sign of a decision from Energy Minister Megan Woods.

In the meantime, global stocktakes have concluded the world has enough fossil fuels in current reserves (essentially, enough food in the fridge) to meet energy requirements while countries roll out clean tech.

No one needs to go shopping for more if we want to successfully meet global climate goals of limiting warming to “well under” 2C and ideally, 1.5C, scientists warn. Beyond 1.5C, the world could reach global tipping points, where the impacts of climate change are turbocharged.

Last year, the International Energy Agency laid out a cost-effective path to bring emissions down to net-zero by 2050 – a key step to achieve 1.5C. Since no new fossil fuels are needed, the first step on its global roadmap was to end oil and gas exploration immediately.

This was echoed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in April. In fact, the expert body concluded we’ll need to leave some already-discovered fossil fuels in the ground, or exceed 1.5C.

This is point of consensus: every time a major group has developed a 1.5C-aligned path, there “is no place for new oil and gas fields beyond those already under development”, according to a new report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development think-tank.

Aotearoa’s lead climate negotiations ambassador agrees. In a recent briefing, Kay Harrison said: “It’s just crazy the notion that you would continue production and supply of new oil and gas… The objective has to be to cut our use.”

It’s a challenging message for developing countries with energy poverty, Harrison stressed, particularly those without reliable or widespread electricity. Rich countries – such as New Zealand – must provide promised climate aid to allow these countries to meet their citizens’ energy needs without turning to fossil fuels, she said.

But wealthy countries are “more than capable of shifting to renewables”, she added.

At COP27, Harrison and her team will be encouraging countries to divert subsidies away from fossil fuels and into clean energy.

Asked if this advocacy clashed with the Government’s issuance of exploration permits, Climate Change Minister James Shaw said: “For as long as we are in a state of transition, we can be accused of being hypocrites.”

Energy Minister Megan Woods was unavailable for an interview with Stuff, so her office provided a response. Decisions affecting new searches for fossil fuels would be announced “in due course”, staff said, with no date provided.

Earlier this year, a group of students sued Woods over her decision to issue two permits allowing companies to hunt for oil and gas in Taranaki. The lawsuit failed, with the High Court judge ruling that the Crown Minerals Act was worded in such a way that Woods could not legally refuse a permit for climate reasons.

“It’s clear the Crown requirements to actively promote further fossil fuel exploration are at odds with New Zealand’s climate commitments,” Woods’ office said in a statement. It did not say if, how or when the law would be changed.

The Government was currently developing a Gas Transition Plan and updating its Energy Strategy “to signal the pathways away from fossil fuels”, staff said.

Climate analyst David Tong, of Oil Change International, was disappointed in the Government’s delay. “We’ve been waiting for four years… We can’t keep waiting into another government’s term. This review needs to be accelerated and concluded.”

Paths to 1.5C often included large amounts of technology sucking carbon from the air, Tong said. It’s technically possible to do this right now, but it’s very expensive – and pilot projects currently only vacuum up relatively tiny amounts of greenhouse gas.

“If you don’t make risky bets like that, then just burning the oil and gas in developed operating fields right now would take us beyond 1.5C,” he said. “Factoring in coal, that takes us beyond 2C… We need a managed decline in oil and gas production.”

Energy Resources Aotearoa, which represents oil and gas producers and other high-emitting companies, said the sector is realistic that gas use will decline between now and 2050.

Its recent report concludes that decisions by Government, large gas user Methanex, and large electricity user Tiwai Point will influence how quickly the country phases down the fossil fuel. (In its preferred scenario, fossil gas use remains much higher in 2050 compared to the Climate Change Commission’s roadmap.)

As ministers make decisions on the future of oil and gas, the industry body “will work collaboratively with the Government”, it said in a statement.

Tong said the Government had a “striking” pattern of ignoring advice from energy experts. Alongside a milestone to end fossil fuel exploration, the International Energy Agency concluded that homes and buildings should start to ditch fossil-fuelled boilers from 2025.

Countries and cities are acting. Finland, France, Norway and Sweden will ban oil and gas boilers by 2024. New builds in New York from next year onwards won’t be connected to gas.

The Climate Change Commission made a similar recommendation: homes would no longer be able to hook up to the gas network after a certain date, potentially 2025. But this wasn’t a feature of the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan.

“It’s hard not to suspect that was a result of the intense pushback from the gas industry,” Tong said.

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