I was shocked to read that our Government signed off a $41m clean energy transition deal with the Asian Development Bank last week (RNZ story).
The Asian Development Bank’s Energy Transition Mechanism uses public and private finance to accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuel plants, by retirement and repurposing of them and replacing them with “cleaner, renewable sources of energy”. Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said the investment would have an initial focus on Indonesia, the Philippines and Viet Nam.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said it demonstrated New Zealand’s commitment to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and said it represented a “significant investment in supporting our partners in South East Asia”.
Is this the same Luxon who called the $140m payment by the Labour Government to NZ Steel for an electrification project, “corporate welfare”? At the time he described it as a “subsidy paid for by Kiwi taxpayers . . . to a large foreign, multinational, profitable company”. I couldn’t have agreed more!
What has changed now? If the Government has $41m to splash around for other countries’ energy transitions, how about instead use the “spare cash” for environmental projects at home?
Here in Gisborne, we can use that money to reduce sewage spilling out — during rain events — into people’s backyards and into our rivers where our young people practise their waka paddling skills.
Simin Williams
