Reality bites coalminer
From The Press:
* The evidence is clear that State-owned coalminer Solid Energy's activities are not sustainable, writes ANNA-CLAIRE HUNTER. *
The timing of Solid Energy's claim that the Save Happy Valley Coalition is responsible for the oxymoron of a $25 million ``profit loss'' is illuminating.
As the recent coal-train blockade is bringing media attention to the coal industry's contribution to climate change, Solid Energy want to talk about snails. Weeks before contract negotiations begin with Stockton miners, it wants an excuse to avoid fair pay increases. And with a rising tide of union activism across the country, it wants to divide, in order to conquer, anti-mining activists and workers.
While the Save Happy Valley Coalition certainly would like to take credit for saving 720,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (from 300,000 tonnes of coal) reaching the atmosphere, the truth is that it is a direct result of poor management by Solid Energy, which signed contracts to sell coal that it didn't have permits to mine.
Other, supposedly independent, arms of the State – such as the Department of Conservation and the Minister of Conservation – aided Solid Energy in its drive to extract and export coal, rather than meeting their statutory obligations to enforce even the environmental legislation that currently exists. The Labour Government has promoted an expansion in coal mining; a socially irresponsible move given the increasing urgency with which we must wean ourselves from fossil fuels.
This state-owned coalminer could not have expected to drive a species to extinction without some cost. Yet it claims it was not expecting this 'wastage' of profit. It implies it has been forced to act to greenwash over the effects of its destruction of 94 per cent of the habitat of endangered native snail, Powelliphanta augustus. It follows that Solid Energy would not have researched, collected and now be attempting to relocate the snails, if it had not been actively pressured.
Such behaviour by this state-owned enterprise earned it the label of 'bullish' in a 2006 Environment Court case. It will only do the absolute minimum expected of it, and only when considerable pressure (in this case through legal proceedings, a public-awareness campaign and an occupation) is applied. There are more snails than was expected. They are still endangered because a substantial portion of their habitat has been destroyed. Five-thousand housed in fridges in Hokitika or in a 'rehabilitated' opencast mine or in the sub-Antarctic islands, they are as good as extinct. This is what is happening to polar bears – they will no doubt live on in zoos, but if the Arctic melts then their habitat will be gone and they will be functionally extinct.
Increasingly, pressure is being applied politically by those concerned about climate change. Solid Energy is responsible for annual emissions equivalent to the entire domestic vehicle fleet in New Zealand. Its shareholder, the New Zealand Government, has provided only hollow promises and empty rhetoric, such as assurances it will decrease emissions from the ministerial fleet. Even if the Government eradicated emissions from the entire government fleet of 11,000 vehicles, it would still only be a reduction equivalent to 0.5% of emissions from Solid Energy's coal.
What Solid Energy is experiencing is the reality that coalmining is not financially viable when one takes into account the costs of its operation on biodiversity and the climate. Biodiversity loss is the first casualty of expanding coalmining on to Mount Augustus. A pristine wetland ecosystem would be destroyed if Solid Energy went into Happy Valley as well.
Long-term, the consequence of relying on carbon-producing fossil fuels will be climate change. When such costs are internalised, coal will be revealed as the outmoded, polluting, uneconomic fossil fuel it is.
The fossil-fuel lobby would like to see industries such as coal mining continue and expand. It has created the concept of 'cleaner coal-burning technologies' that it promises will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that reaches the atmosphere – by capturing it, piping it and storing it underground, in perpetuity. However, the technology does not exist yet at an industrial scale and there is no guarantee scientists will ever achieve the desired goal. Furthermore, the other impurities removed, such as sulphur, still have to be stored, or dumped, somewhere. This compares with already- proven renewable-energy sources such as wind, solar, and micro-hydro. The simplest and most cost-effective step to reducing carbon emissions is to reduce power wastage.
It is clear we need to move away from using non-renewable resources for the long-term sustainability of our societies. What then of the sustainability of employment on the West Coast? When climate change necessitates the cessation of coal mining, a holistic approach, considering both environmental and social justice, is needed. We have all enjoyed the benefits of the mineral resources on the West Coast. The cost of the transition must not fall onto miners and their families on the Coast; it must be carried by everyone.
The Save Happy Valley Coalition wants to support workers on the Coast to create sustainable communities, where decisions are made locally. Not at the whims of the latte sippers in Wellington, the suits behind desks in the Solid Energy headquarters in Christchurch, and definitely not the uncertain market forces of offshore buyers who are interested as long as the exchange rate suits.
* Anna-Claire Hunter is a member of the Save Happy Valley Coalition.
