Context
The Queenstown Airport Corporation’s board must provide QLDC with its Statement of Intent before the end of June each year. This SOI is the legal document through which QLDC can control the company’s objectives and the nature and scope of its activities.
This year’s SOI outlines QAC’s expansion strategy.
Queenstown Airport’s $350 million expansion plans for an additional 800,000 passenger movements by 2032 (a 33% increase), in essentially the same timeframe that QLDC’s Destination Management Plan aims to achieve Carbon Zero by 2030.
Given that the DMP’s Carbon Zero by 2030 goal includes the flight emissions of visitors traveling to the district, these two Council initiatives of reduced visitor flights and airport expansion are incompatible.
QLDC full council meeting
June 29, 2023
Kia ora, I am John Hilhorst representing FlightPlan2050.
The Queenstown Lakes Regenerative Tourism Project was three years in the making. Courageous conversations by all those involved.
Their bold claim to become Carbon Zero by 2030 – in the next seven years – is audacious, impossible even. But for all that, we know it’s made with deep sincerity.
We know that because they have explicitly included “the emissions of visitors and supplies travelling to the district” and they are developing methodologies to assess the multi-sector flights of international visitors.
The boldness of the Carbon Zero by 2030 aspiration is galvanising. Our tourism sector wants to be the world leader in green tourism, showing – proving – it can be done.
It has already generated extraordinary collaborations and commitments. Electric jet boats and bus fleets are on the way. NZ ski.com announced it will reduce this year’s emissions by 50%. CEO Paul Anderson said, “We’re really excited and proud to be able to come out with this.” They’ll cut emissions by one thousand four hundred tonnes this season.
The sector knows Carbon Zero by 2030 means they must manage the actual visitor numbers. Reducing visitor flight emissions is the principal lever identified in their Discussion Paper published in May.
As councillors, you can be proud of this because Council is an equal partner in developing the Regenerative project and you adopted the plan in February.
Yet, your airport plans to increase flights by a third in the same timeframe.
There is no escaping that adding flights over the next seven years will increase emissions. For all the promise of green aviation in the future, it’s not on the table for this airport this decade.
By 2030, the increased flight emissions over-and-above current levels from the airport’s planned growth would amount to a massive 8 million tonnes. That’s five thousand times more than saved by NZski.com.
QAC’s plan to grow flights makes a mockery of the Regenerative Tourism Project. It makes it a charade, a greenwash of the worst order. Far from leading the world in green tourism, we would be a pariah. One that pretends greatness but proves itself to be dishonest.
It’s your choice, you at this table. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim a Carbon Zero by 2030 aspiration and plan to increase flights over the next seven years.
That would claim a lie. A lie that undermines the integrity of our tourism sector, our businesses, and our community.
Prior to last year’s election, you each agreed “there’s a climate change emergency and we need to act decisively.” It was the one issue that united you all.
This question of airport expansion is where the rubber hits the tarmac. On our response to climate change, the book of history lies open. You, here, now, hold the pen.
Please say no to airport expansion.
Ngā mihi, e noho rā