Ōtautahi – New Zealand is to phase out all coal boilers by 2037. Most western European countries are phasing out fossil fuel burning coal boilers much earlier.
The news from government says the new law will reduce Aotearoa’s emissions by about the same amount as 100,000 cars would produce in a year.
One climate change expert says these moves are always too little and too late but until voters vote for sooner and bigger reductions and elected leaders stop pushing out deadlines as we approach them, we will be denied the opportunities and benefits of lower emissions by interests vested in no or slow change from high emissions.
Currently, more than half of the heat used to process raw materials into products such as paper and dairy production comes from fossil fuels.
Switching to cleaner ways of generating process heat presents a huge opportunity to reduce domestic greenhouse gases and paves the way for greener export products too.
The new policy follows the government’s recent announcement of New Zealand’s biggest ever emissions reduction project, in partnership with NZ Steel, to introduce an electric arc furnace and reduce carbon emissions by 800,000 tonnes per year, the equivalent of 300,000 cars.
The new national direction will ensure councils regulate process heat emissions in a nationally consistent way, accelerating New Zealand’s transition to a low emission, thriving, and sustainable economy.
Most schools, hospitals and universities have been kept warm by coal boilers until recently. Many still burn coal.
The new direction will phase out all coal boilers by 2037 and ban the installation of new coal heating devices, from 27 July this year.
Under the new policy, resource consent will be needed for discharges of greenhouse gases from all fossil fuel heat devices generating 500 tonnes (or more) of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, per site.
The announcement does not cover:
- emissions from non-fossil fuels
- electricity generation
- heat devices used for commercial space and water heating. These are partially covered by the carbon neutral government programme and the Ministry of Business, Employment and Innovation’s building for climate change programme devices under the consent threshold.)
- Back up devices used for planned maintenance or in emergencies for 400 hours or less per year are exempt from the regulations.
