They're talking about our coal - in Wellington!

Keep The Coal In The Hole: Why Southland Lignite Shouldn't Be Mined




Coal Action Network Public Meeting

When: Wednesday 16 February

Where: St John's Church Hall, cnr Willis and Dixon Streets, Wellington

Time: 7pm

Speaker: Jeanette Fitzsimons, climate change campaigner, former co-leader of the Green Party

Why Come Along?
Government-owned Solid Energy and other coal companies want to mine the massive quantities of lignite, a low-quality brown coal, that lies under Southland farmland. They plan to turn it into briquettes, urea fertiliser, and synthetic diesel.
Mining and processing lignite will cause extensive local pollution. Even worse, it will lead to huge greenhouse gas emissions. In her recent report *Lignite and climate change: The high cost of low grade coal*, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, estimates that there are at least 6 billion tonnes of economically recoverable lignite reserves in Southland. Using all this, as the mining companies intend, would lead to at least 8.7 billion tonnes of Co2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions - a huge increase in New Zealand's emissions, and a significant increase in emissions on a global scale.