The Wop-Whoops
New Zealand becomes the latest victim of Net Zero insanity.
“Never mistake activity for achievement.” – John Wooden
As far as carbon emissions are concerned, it is difficult to find a less relevant country than New Zealand. According to the endlessly helpful Statistical Review of World Energy, the country’s 5 million residents emitted just 0.08% of the anthropogenic global share in 2023. By comparison, China emits more in a single day than New Zealand does in a year, and the former’s year-over-year growth in this all-consuming metric amounted to 22 times the latter’s entire annual total. When combined with its considerable geographic isolation, New Zealand can pretty much do whatever it wants and nobody outside its borders would notice.
These hard numbers make former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s obsession with being seen as caring about carbon emissions rather perplexing, especially considering that New Zealand already sports one of the “greenest” electricity grids in the Western world, with more than half of its power produced by hydroelectric dams. The primary concerns of any leader of an island nation, where global emergencies can quickly crimp imports, ought to be fuel security and the overall robustness of its food and energy sectors. It’s a long swim to Australia, after all.
Within months of her first election win, Ardern’s new government nonetheless thought it wise to force change. In a move that was as celebrated as it was misguided, the new prime minister made global headlines with a bold sacrifice:
“The New Zealand government will grant no new offshore oil exploration permits in a move that is being hailed by conservation and environmental groups as a historic victory in the battle against climate change. The ban will apply to new permits and won’t affect the existing 22, some of which have decades left on their exploration rights and cover an area of 100,000 sq km. The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said her government ‘has a plan to transition towards a carbon-neutral future, one that looks 30 years in advance’...
Greenpeace New Zealand said the government’s announcement was a ‘historic moment’ for the country and ‘a huge win for our climate and people power.’ Last month Ardern accepted a 50,000-strong Greenpeace petition calling for an end to offshore oil and gas exploration. ‘The tide has turned irreversibly against big oil in New Zealand,’ said the Greenpeace New Zealand executive director, Russel Norman.”
Having impaled the country’s ability to explore for oil and natural gas, the Ardern government subsequently oversaw the closure of New Zealand’s only oil refinery. While not overtly advocating to shutter the privately-owned facility, the government certainly did little to save it, and the Marsden Point Oil Refinery was converted into an import-only fuel terminal in 2022. Ominous foreshadowing of larger challenges swiftly followed:
“The New Zealand government is considering bringing forward plans to increase domestic fuel storage, following a jet fuel shortage earlier this month, a spokesperson for the energy minister said on Tuesday.
With the country depending entirely on imports since April, the failure of a recent shipment to pass quality tests resulted in shortages at Auckland Airport, the country's busiest. Airlines there were told in early December that jet fuel supplies would be reduced to just 75% of the originally planned allocation.”
Weeks after the jet fuel scare, Ardern resigned as Prime Minister, unironically claiming that she no longer had “enough in the tank” to continue in her current role. Christopher Luxon’s conservative National Party won a plurality of the subsequent vote and went on to form a coalition government. It didn’t take long for the consequences of Ardern’s energy mishaps to wreak havoc on New Zealand’s economy. Like most countries that embrace the green energy agenda, New Zealand has slipped into a serious but utterly predictable crisis. Energy prices are soaring, heavy industry is culling operations, and fears of rolling blackouts are causing grid operators to plead with consumers to voluntarily cut demand.
As with Germany before it and Britain soon enough, the harsh realities of physics have asserted themselves yet again. Let’s explore the specifics of what’s happening and appraise Luxon’s proposals for the country’s path forward.