Not all sunsets are pretty
It’s doubtful many southerners will be gazing out to sea and heaving heavy sighs at the Government’s decision to issue no more offshore oil exploration permits.
Unlike Taranaki, where the industry is already hugely significant, this doesn’t wallop any vivid, let alone realistic, regional development ambitions in the south. Spasmodic hopes have arisen down the decades that exploration might lead to an industry of significance off our coast. They’ve come to naught and the possibility certainly doesn’t loom large in the Southland Regional Development Strategy.
A couple of years ago SoRDS governance group leader Tom Campbell, who also happened to be a director of the Todd Corporation, at a public meeting noted news reports raising the prospect of offshore oil drilling requiring development of SouthPort. Campbell turned his head politely to the side, raised a hand to his mouth, and gave the ever-soslightly less polite ‘‘bullshit’’ cough.
A pretty clear message. Similarly the strategy’s new industries team leader, former South Port general manager Mark O’Connor, recently described the likelihood in diminishing terms.
‘‘As time goes by, there’s probably less likelihood’’ of closer southern exploration, he said, and not just because of the challenges of climate and ocean conditions, but also the prospect of energy alternatives.
‘‘I think mankind will come up with a smarter solution.’’ Amen to that. The scientific world says with increasing urgency that fossil fuels must be a sunset industry. The question is how quickly and what role New Zealand should rightly play. National has already signalled it would reverse a decision that it portrays as selfharm inflicted for no real benefit to the country or the planet. We’d simply wind up importing more fossil fuel from overseas.
Except the Government’s call is hardly a guillotine drop. Existing permits in Taranaki permits will continue until at least 2030 and indications are that gas would still be needed for roughly the next three decades until infrastructure and technology for renewables were in place.For what it’s worth, the Government hasn’t ruled out on-shore exploration in Taranaki. (That this tincture of tolerance seems limited to that province won’t be lost on Southland Greenies concerned about the massive quantities of lignite under Southland soil; another area where SoRDS isn’t looking for development).
Victoria University’s Climate Change Research Institute director Professor Dave Frame makes a telling point: it’s good for the climate to limit the expansion of the fossil fuel sector but economically this shifts a burden to regional development portfolios.