LNG fiasco highlights National refuse to cut emissions or fund adaptation – our climate denial is about to be burnt

They lied and tried to hide…

LNG document should not have been hidden, ombudsman says

Officials should not have withheld a key document behind the government’s decision to proceed with a “divisive” LNG terminal, the chief ombudsman has ruled.

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The document – released in full following the ruling – concluded access to liquefied natural gas (LNG) was unlikely to affect average electricity prices and there were other ways to improve New Zealand’s energy security.

The climate advocacy group that laid the complaint said the lack of transparency over such an expensive and contentious project was concerning.

The document summarises the findings of Concept Consulting, which the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) commissioned to model the effect of building the LNG facility.

The ministry has downplayed the consultants’ conclusions, saying the set of slides was a “draft of an informal working document” and therefore officials did not correct anything they disagreed with.

However, Chief Ombudsman John Allen found the document provided “important context and limitations” for the advice and modelling.

He found the reasons for withholding it were not valid, and even if they were, there was “very high” public interest in releasing it, especially in an election year.

RNZ

…Households don’t use LNG.

Industry uses LNG.

And the biggest industry that needs LNG is Fonterra who use it to dry milk into powder, which they do during the ‘dry season’.

So what National are really doing is ensuring their mates can continue to dry milk powder, which we will all pay for, despite the truth that we don’t really need it anyway…

Officials redacted advice showing ‘low need’ for LNG imports

Advice that government officials tried to redact shows there is “low need” for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility.

A newly unredacted version of modelling commissioned by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) was released to RNZ following a complaint to the Ombudsman.

It shows that in some scenarios, no LNG is needed at all.

…This is another example of National allowing Fonterra to write their own laws and lower environmental standards, surely the 88% of us who are not rural should be sick of National running the country purely in the interest of their Dairy mates?

Time and time and time again, National refuse to cut emissions or fund adaptation, here’s Chris Bishop refusing to do anything about adaptation…

Chris Bishop blocks Gisborne council plan to tackle forestry slash and erosion

A decision by Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to refuse a plan to urgently tackle destructive land use practices in Tairāwhiti/Gisborne has been labelled “indefensible” by a local environmental group.

Gisborne District Council, which was behind the plan, was similarly unimpressed, saying the seven months it had taken Bishop to make his decision was disappointing.

For the more than three years since devastating cyclones Hale and Gabrielle, the Gisborne region has been looking at ways to improve land use in a bid to prevent or ease the destructive impacts of forestry slash, soil and debris that is washed off steep slopes in heavy rain events.

A government-ordered ministerial inquiry into forestry practices, launched after Cyclone Gabrielle, resulted in the Outrage to Optimism report in May 2023, which called for urgent action.

It said wood debris caused “dire impacts” on locals, risking their lives and threatening livelihoods, and was critical of the inaction of central and local government, which it said had failed to regulate the forestry industry adequately.

The report led Gisborne District Council to spend 18 months consulting farming and forestry sectors, environmental groups, iwi, national and local regulators and scientists and experts from various fields before producing the 85-page Transition Programme Business Case – Land Use Transition in Tairāwhiti.

The business case, finished early last year, pointed to the huge cost of storm remediation to local and central government and the savings that could be made through proactive action.

It said action must be taken rapidly, and up to 100,000 hectares, or 12% of the region’s land, should be transitioned into permanent vegetation cover (indigenous or exotic) in Indicative Transition Zones.

Stuff

…the problem is National is dominated by Farming interests and Big Polluters interests, so they refuse to cut emissions and they refuse to fund the adaptation infrastructure  extreme weather events create.

This leaves us with the worst of all worlds. The most fascinating point will be when more extreme weather hits, how does National convince Kiwis to keep protecting the big polluters when they are burring and drowning?

We are now in the age of consequences.