The National-led coalition Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill proposes to reverse the former Labour Government’s ban on offshore oil and gas exploration.
Oil and gas produce CO2, the most abundant greenhouse gas, which is now at its highest atmospheric level in 16 million years.
Recently, we have been offered a way out by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon capture and storage (CCS) refers to a collection of technologies that can help combat climate change. Storage hopes are pipe dreams, I say.
Carbon capture is nothing new. Nature has done it. The CO2 emissions that it is suggested we capture and store belong to the fossil fuels captured and stored by nature countless millions of years ago.
Fossil fuels formed over millions of years from the carbon-rich remains of animals and plants, as they decomposed and were compressed and heated underground — a process taking many millions of years.
Hungry for its energy, we humans began tapping into this source 300 years ago. Although now well aware of the damage we cause, we wish to continue its use — dreaming up ways to make the problem disappear.
The only way out is to get to zero carbon. Despite the climate jargon of “net zero carbon”, I mean zero carbon: no greenhouse gas emissions. Zilch. Nothing.
We can’t survive as a species if we continue emitting greenhouse gases like we do. We need to get off fossil fuels as soon as possible.
Please understand, the worsening of climate change that we are experiencing now results from our past excesses. Today’s emissions will be experienced tomorrow. Prepare for a worsening climate.
Bob Hughes
