{"id":77314,"date":"2026-05-25T15:53:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T03:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/?p=77314"},"modified":"2026-05-25T16:58:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T04:58:29","slug":"govt-forced-to-admit-its-fossil-gas-story-was-always-a-fairytale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/press-release\/govt-forced-to-admit-its-fossil-gas-story-was-always-a-fairytale\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt forced to admit its fossil gas story was always a fairytale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The NZ Government has been forced today to reinstate a scheme to support businesses transitioning off fossil gas.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThis is a major admission by the Government that the fairytale they have been telling the country, that there is more fossil gas, was always nonsense,\u201d says Dr Russel Norman, Greenpeace Aotearoa Executive Director.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cAs the OECD and Greenpeace have been saying <\/a>– New Zealand\u2019s energy future is in renewable electricity generation, storage, and demand-side management, not fossil gas. Renewables are more reliable, more affordable, and more sustainable than fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe current Government\u2019s head-in-the-sand approach to energy policy has cost the nation two years of delay, when we should have been accelerating the transition away from fossil gas.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIndustry should be angry with a Government that has delayed the transition for so long, costing New Zealanders jobs and money. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe Government has repeated the lie that the current shortage in fossil gas is due to the decision to stop issuing new oil and gas exploration permits. In fact the delay between issuing permits and getting gas into production, if any was ever found, was more than a decade.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt’s time to stop the Government\u2019s $200m subsidy to fossil gas exploration and the multi-billion subsidy to the LNG import facility. If fossil gas can\u2019t compete in the market then why should taxpayers subsidise it?<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe key risk to the Government\u2019s fiscal position now is if Nicola Willis and Shane Jones sign up to underwriting the decommissioning <\/a>of old gas fields. This could cost the taxpayers billions of dollars and must be the responsibility of the oil and gas companies who took all the profits.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NZ Government has been forced today to reinstate a scheme to support businesses transitioning off fossil gas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":68661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[16,26,29],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-77314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-climate","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-clean-energy","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\nGovt forced to admit its fossil gas story was always a fairytale<\/title>\n<meta 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