Over 140,000 New Zealanders demand a clean energy future

Earlier this week, groups from around New Zealand converged on parliament to deliver a 140,000-plus signature petition, calling on John Key’s government to abandon its fossil fuels agenda in favour of clean energy. Groups and individuals supporting the hand-in event came from the East Cape (Te Whanau a Apanui), Hamilton, Raglan, Nelson, Christchurch and Dunedin.

  

At the same time, a 2000 signature-strong petition was also delivered by Oil-Free Otago, protesting Texan oil giant Anadarko’s plans to begin deep sea drilling off the Otago and Canterbury coasts as early as this summer.

“This is a message the government can’t ignore,” said Simon Boxer, Greenpeace New Zealand Senior Climate Campaigner.

“Well over 100,000 New Zealanders have given a definite ‘no’ to deep sea oil, and to any expansion of the coal industry. Instead they’ve said they want their energy to come from clean, renewable sources that don’t come with the risk of either a catastrophic oil spill or runaway climate change.”

Among those who travelled to Wellington for the event was the Chairperson of Te Whanau a Apanui Runanga, Adelaide Waititi.

“We are heartened by the number of people who’ve put their name to the growing movement to keep deep sea oil rigs out of the waters of Aotearoa, including off the East Cape,” she said.

“Deep sea oil drilling off our coasts threatens the economy, our pristine coastlines, and Otago’s future as a whole,” said Niamh O’Flynn, from Oil-Free Otago.

“The success of our petition has shown that people from all over Otago are strongly opposed to drilling in the Canterbury Basin and are angered by the lack of public consultation over the issue,” she said.

“The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico forced the authorities to close off an area of ocean twice the size of the North Island,” said J Beaudry, from the Raglan-based surfer’s protest group B-Rad.

“Anadarko, one of the companies headed to New Zealand, owned a quarter share of the Deepwater Horizon project. What’s to stop the same thing happening to one of its deep water rigs, only this time off our coast?”

But the costs of ignoring clean energy alternatives won’t only be environmental, according to Boxer.

“The government’s fossil fuel agenda is causing New Zealand to miss out on billions of dollars of clean energy contracts and thousands of jobs. To ignore the financial opportunities for New Zealand arising from the global clean energy revolution, that last year was worth over US$250 billion, is nothing short of economic mismanagement,” he said.

The delivery of the petition comes as the government’s EEZ legislation is before the House.

“The EEZ legislation won’t stop an oil spill. It is designed simply to make it look as though the government cares about the consequences of its obsession with fossil fuels, when it does not,” Boxer said.