Eight organisations that deal with energy and resources have appealed to politicians to develop consistent and enduring policies to make it easier for them to do their job.
They also want better resource management law, more diverse sources of energy and a strong Emissions Trading Scheme.
The groups have issued these requests in an open letter to six political parties: National, Labour, the Greens, Act, New Zealand First and The Opportunities Party.
The letter puts forward a 10 point plan to "unlock New Zealand's social, economic, and environmental wellbeing."
One of the dominant messages is the need for clear and enduring government policies, which are well signaled and durable.
"Unclear, short-term policy settings make it harder to bring more energy and resources online and make decarbonisation investments," the open letter says.
It has been written by a range of groups, including the BusinessNZ Energy Council, Electricity Networks Aotearoa, GasNZ and Straterra.
The letter comes after representatives of all six parties attended a discussion of their polices organised by one of the signatories, Energy Resources Aotearoa.
It also follows warnings of a tight energy supply by Transpower in May, again in June and for a third time this month.
Along with wanting political consistency, the signatories are also seeking recognition of the so-called "Energy Trilemma".
This principle urges countries to focus on three vital aspects of energy: its reliability, its affordability and its sustainability.
Each year, World Energy Council blends these principles together and comes up with global rankings. Last year, New Zealand came eighth in the world, ahead of Australia and the US, but behind Canada, Britain and several European nations.
The open letter urges politicians to use the trilemma as their main organising principle.
"Every sector participant wants to provide energy to consumers that is affordable, reliable, and sustainable, so it can be used productively throughout the economy," the letter says.
It also urges governments to be precise when they issue regulations.
"They should use the right policy tools for the right problem," it says.
"While inevitably overlapping, energy and resources policy and climate change policies have different objectives and problems that require careful analysis and trade-offs to be made."
This comment follows repeated claims that in discouraging the gas industry in the name of fighting climate change, the Government has reduced energy security and actually encouraged the burning of more coal.
The open letter also calls for a "robust Emissions Trading Scheme", which could "do the heavy lifting to meet our net zero emissions goal."
This comment follows the price of carbon dropping, then reviving, in two successive and contradictory announcements by the Government.
The letter goes on to call for a more resilient energy system by using a greater variety of energy types, fuels and locations.
"The more options we have, the more resilience, the lower emissions, and lower costs we are likely to face," it says.
It also wants more competitive pricing and "customer-centric innovations, rather than heavy-handed regulations."
And the letter calls for a planning and resource management system that "enables energy generation and mineral assets and other infrastructure to be built in the right place at the right time for the least cost."
It also wants all options for combating emissions kept on the table, including carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS).
This technology involves keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere by pumping it into underground caverns, such as depleted gas fields.
"Carbon capture and renewable gases, biomass and biofuels can all reduce hard-to-abate emissions," the letter says.
"(Governments should) ensure that regulatory settings allow them to flourish."
The letter also puts in a plug for the mining industry, by asking Governments to "recognise the important role that New Zealand’s domestic mineral resources will have in our low-emissions future."
This is a reference to repeated complaints that rare minerals such as lithium are essential for low-emissions technology and so it is important to allow them to be dug out of the earth.
The letter also calls for a better trained workforce.
Climate Change Commission Chairman Rod Carr told interest.co.nz in 2020 that New Zealand needed a 30-year energy plan.
4 Comments
Bit mixed, this - almost oxymoronic.
unlock New Zealand's social, economic, and environmental wellbeing."
The latter is really a matter of REAL sustainability - which I have yet to see this writer grasp. That means the non-draw-down and/or 100% recycling of finite resources (NNRs), the use of renewabe resources at no more than their rate of renewal, and the use of sinks such that their capacity to absorb, is not diminished.
That is a bottom-line, not one of a list.
And we will never do carbon capture, for the simple reason that it takes energy to effect. And it is energy we are doing the burning, to use. All of it - and even then we aren't holding the growth-system together. So we will never triage energy away do to this, nor to build the replacement for ALL our fossil-dependent infrastructure, in less than a decade (Maui, Europe, Canada, our floods, Aussies on beaches with fires up their asses, and that's only climate impacts.
Not for the first time, Eric seems to be echoing obvious touts (Straterra; I ask you?) without balance. And why Carr 2020? He has moved since then (he is well aware of the Limits to Growth, and no doubt their ramifications, but we need a media which is too, and asks the hard questions.
Given that energy underwrites money 100% - no energy=no work=no production; it should be easy enough to understand - you cannot reduce energy (and maintain the life-supporting envelope of conditions) while also 'maintaining economic wellbeing'. No past civilization has achieved that, nor will this one. But this one just happens to be the first - and only possible - time the experiment is being run. Perhaps we need to be investigating the ramifications?
Interestingly, given their track record of usurping democracy in favour of money (Canty), the Nacts will probably try and acquiesce to this (shades of Brownlee and Schedule 4) but events are moving beyond the whole debate.
By the time you've done that, you don't have an 'economy'. The same will happen if we burn the last 50% (the worst quality 50%) of the fossil fuels, of course.
Just sayin'.
No city made it to over 1 million inhabitants ex fossil energy; the inevitable reversal (exodus from cities) should be what we are discussing. Your comment is an opinion, but the media have a greater responsibility to research and warn...
I don't disagree with you. We are in for a torrid time because not using fossil fuel energy will have enormous impacts you outline, but on the other hand, even if we use only the currently identified world reserves of fossil fuels the climate will be impossible for viable agriculture and the oceans will be turning to algae or dead. All I am saying is that I would prefer the ETS mechanism to incentivise emissions reduction rather than a lot of random government interventions.
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