Minister defends allowing continued fossil-fuel exploration
Energy Minister Megan Woods is defending her decision to grant two permits to look for new oil and gas fields in Taranaki.
In 2018, the Government banned offshore oil and gas exploration, but continued to offer onshore permits.
Woods and the Government say they did consider climate change before granting the permits, focusing on the national (not global) situation.
The Government is defending a High Court challenge to the permits by Students for Climate Solutions.
Before permits were granted last year, the International Energy Agency concluded that fossil-fuel prospecting would end immediately if countries could reach net-zero by 2050 and keep planetary temperature rise to 1.5C. ‘‘There is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply’’ under an economically, socially and technically feasible path to achieve 1.5C, its report said.
Under that roadmap, advanced economies such as New Zealand make earlier progress.
The Government has signed up to a 1.5C goal in law and through the international Paris Agreement.
The students argued the report – and the urging of iwi Ngāruahine – should have stopped the Government issuing the permits. Six months before, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared a climate emergency.
However, Woods’ lawyers argued the Government did sufficiently weigh up the impacts of climate change when considering the permits. This exercise focused on the national situation, and noted the country had a domestic target of netzero, rather than zero, emissions.
Net-zero means some emissions can continue as long as they are counteracted by planting trees or other methods of carbon removal.
The defence said the permits’ impact on global emissions was not considered, and didn’t need to be.
The Crown argued the Government considered all relevant information and met its legal obligations.
Lawyers acting for the students argued the Government failed to properly consider the impacts of the fossil fuels that could be found and extracted in coming decades.
The climate crisis would disproportionately affect Māori, counsel representing the students, Michael Heard, said. One iwi organisation wrote in a submission to the Government that no exploration permits should be granted.
But Woods ‘‘closed her mind to those things’’ because she was advised to, Heard said.
He said the Zero Carbon Act asked ministers to consider climate change when making decisions on other legislation, if they thought it appropriate.
Before the permits were granted, officials engaged iwi – though the intent was to identify areas of significant cultural and environmental importance, and exclude these from a map of eligible blocks.
High Court Justice Francis Cooke asked what avenue was available to iwi ‘‘as kaitiaki of the resources’’ wanting to give their views on the continued granting fossil-fuel permits.
For Woods, Crown Law counsel Aedeen Boadita-Cormican argued the yearly permit-issuing process was not the place for this. The oil and gas programme was due to be refreshed this year, she added, offering a ‘‘live opportunity’’ for these views to be collected.
In addition, different iwi held conflicting perspectives on the continued extraction of fossil fuels, she said.
Woods did not approve the permits herself, but delegated her authority to Phillippa Fox, a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment general manager.
Officials provided Fox recommendations on the permits.
The defence argued Fox did not
have a legal requirement under the Zero Carbon Act to consider climate change in assessing the permits, but she considered the issue anyway.
Officials told Fox the Government intended to develop a national energy strategy which would manage the phase-down of fossil fuels.
Boadita-Cormican said that to meet its Treaty obligations, the ministry ran a consultation process with iwi and hapū , and received five submissions. From there, officials decided which submissions were relevant to the areas the permits would apply to.
In its submission, Ngāruahine expressed ‘‘serious concerns’’ about the effects of fossil-fuel extraction, and asked the Government to take a stand against it.
It was the only iwi to raise these issues, Boadita-Cormican said.
In the recommendations provided to Fox, officials concluded the Government could not follow Ngāruahine’s request, she added.
The Government does not have a policy to stop issuing fossil-fuel exploration permits altogether. While the coalition Government banned offshore permits in 2018, legislative changes would be required to halt all exploration, the defence argued.