Today, New Zealand’s government passed legislation amending the Crown Minerals Act to reopen new offshore oil and gas exploration, a move that climate and energy experts at Oil Change International are calling an unjustifiable step backwards.

Today’s vote follows the New Zealand government’s June exit from the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, an international coalition working together for a managed phaseout of oil and gas production

David Tong, Global Industry Campaign Manager at Oil Change International said:

“Just days ago, the highest court in the world affirmed that every country has a legal duty to act in line with the 1.5ºC survival limit – a threshold that demands, at minimum, an immediate end to new oil, gas, and coal expansion. Yet today, the New Zealand government has raced in the opposite direction, recklessly overturning the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration, after conducting an underhanded process that blocked public participation.

“The current retrograde government has once again exposed its loyalty to fossil fuel companies, but the reality is that no matter how deep Minister Shane Jones tries to dig, the oil and gas industry has no future in New Zealand.

“Next year’s election must deliver a government that not only restores the ban, but goes further to end all new fossil fuel extraction, onshore and offshore, once and for all.”