Government warned about ‘death cult’

Greenpeace will be warning senior Government figures tomorrow not to trust the “honeyed words” of oil companies – likening the industry to a “death cult.”

“At this critical juncture as we face catastrophic climate change it is essential that we don’t let this death cult take us with them,” says Senior Campaign and Political Advisor for Greenpeace NZ Steve Abel.

Abel will appear before the Environment Select Committee at 10.45 am Thursday, 18 October in support of the government’s amendment to the Crown Minerals Act.

He says the oil and gas industry are backed into a corner after the Government’s ban on new offshore exploration.

Abel will warn the Committee against listening to the misinformation of fossil fuel industry, saying they have a massive vested interest, and are unsurprisingly lobbying hard against the ban.

Greenpeace’s submission can be seen here.

About the author

Steve Abel is a long-time environmental and climate activist who was part of the successful campaign to end native logging on crown la…nd in the late 1990s; the GE Free environment campaign in the early 2000s; the Greenpeace campaign to stop Marsden B coalfired power station in 2005; and the alliance with Te Whānau-ā-Apanui against Petrobras which led to a seven-year campaign that culminated in the end to offshore oil and gas exploration in Aotearoa in 2018. Abel is part of the urban tree protection group – Mana Rākau – which emerged from the 240+ day occupation of the Canal Road native tree stand in Avondale that began in 2020. From 2021, as Senior Campaigner for Greenpeace Aotearoa, Steve led the project to provide free nitrate water testing for rural people on bore supplies impacted by dairy contamination. Having first volunteered for Greenpeace in 1997, Abel resigned from the organisation in early 2023 to stand for parliament.