A mere few days after I published Towards Ecological Realism, the universe has kindly provided an illustration: 14 days of diesel in the country, and another 28 days “on the water” — which is a polite way of saying we hope the ships don’t get delayed, diverted, or outbid.
Petrol shortages would be inconvenient. Diesel shortages would be… educational. It’s hard to run ambulances, ferries, tractors, or freight on good intentions.
We did this to ourselves, of course. Years of assuming the ships would always arrive, the refineries elsewhere would always run, and the world would always stay calm enough for our just‑in‑time model to work. Ecological realism isn’t a warning — it’s a mirror.
It was only when the latest Middle East crisis erupted that I realised how exposed New Zealand really is. Not just economically, not just politically, but physically — in the most literal sense of the word. Our ability to move, to work, to feed ourselves, to function as a society depends on a resource we do not control, cannot produce, and can barely store. A resource that must travel across half the world to reach us.
For years, I had taken comfort in the idea that New Zealand was relatively insulated from global turmoil. We are small, distant, and blessed with abundant renewable electricity. But as fuel prices spiked and supply chains wobbled, it became clear that this sense of insulation was an illusion. Our clean electricity system hides a deeper vulnerability: almost everything that moves in this country — cars, trucks, tractors, ferries, planes — runs on imported fossil fuels. And when that supply is threatened, the entire system begins to shake.
This realisation was not dramatic. It arrived quietly, like a slow‑forming crack in a windowpane. But once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. The more I looked, the more I understood that our vulnerability is not the result of a single decision or a single government. It is the cumulative outcome of decades of choices that made sense at the time but no longer fit the world we now inhabit.
The Paradox at the Heart of NZ’s Energy System
New Zealand likes to think of itself as a renewable energy leader — and in some ways, we are. Around 80 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources, a figure that many countries envy. But electricity is only part of the picture. When it comes to transport, we are one of the most fossil‑fuel‑dependent nations in the developed world.
This is the paradox at the heart of our energy system: we have a clean electricity grid, but a dirty transport network.
Our renewable electricity gives us a huge advantage — but only if we use it. And right now, we don’t. Instead, we rely almost entirely on imported petrol and diesel to move people and goods. This dependence is so deep that even short‑term disruptions can cause significant strain. A conflict on the other side of the world can raise prices here within days. A shipping delay can ripple through the economy in ways we barely notice until something breaks.
The paradox becomes even sharper when we consider how much of our economy depends on transport. Our food system, our tourism industry, our freight networks, our emergency services — all rely on fossil fuels. And because we import every drop of refined fuel we use, we are at the mercy of global markets, geopolitical tensions, and shipping routes that stretch across some of the world’s most contested waters.
We have built a system that works beautifully when the world is calm, but becomes fragile the moment the world is not.
How We Became So Exposed
New Zealand’s current vulnerability did not emerge overnight, nor can it be attributed to a single decision or a single government. It is the cumulative result of decades of choices — some deliberate, some passive, some made with good intentions, and others made with little thought for long‑term consequences. What ties them together is a consistent pattern: we have repeatedly prioritised short‑term convenience over long‑term resilience, and each time we have done so, we have deepened our dependence on imported fossil fuels.
One of the most consequential decisions was the closure of the Marsden Point refinery. For years, the refinery provided a measure of strategic flexibility. It allowed New Zealand to import crude oil from a variety of sources and refine it locally, shortening supply chains and providing a buffer during disruptions. When Marsden Point was converted into an import‑only terminal, that buffer disappeared. New Zealand now relies entirely on refined fuel shipped from overseas — a system that is efficient in stable times but brittle in a crisis.
At the same time, our transport policies have consistently reinforced car dependence. Public transport has been chronically underfunded outside major cities. Walking and cycling infrastructure has been treated as optional rather than essential. Rail has been allowed to wither. And through it all, roads have expanded — often justified as “future‑proofing,” even as they lock us into patterns of mobility that depend on imported fuel.
More recently, the dismantling of policies designed to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles has further slowed progress. The Clean Car Discount, for all its imperfections, was beginning to shift the market. Removing it abruptly sent a clear signal that electrification was no longer a priority. Coupled with proposals to weaken the Clean Car Standard, the effect has been to stall momentum at precisely the moment when global events are demonstrating the urgency of reducing oil dependence.
Underlying all of this is a broader cultural pattern: New Zealand has tended to treat energy as a commodity rather than a strategic asset. We assume that fuel will always be available, that shipping lanes will always be open, and that global markets will always function smoothly. These assumptions have held for long stretches of time, which makes them feel safe. But they are assumptions nonetheless — and the events unfolding in the Middle East show how fragile they can be.
The result is a system that is highly efficient in calm conditions but deeply vulnerable in turbulent ones. We have centralised our energy supply, lengthened our supply chains, and tied our mobility to a resource we do not control. We have allowed resilience to erode in the name of efficiency, and we are now living with the consequences.
New Zealand’s vulnerability did not arise from a single failure but from a long series of decisions that left our transport and energy systems increasingly exposed to forces beyond our control. Part One has traced how this happened — how a country rich in renewable energy became dependent on imported fuel for its most essential activities. In Part Two, I shift from diagnosis to direction, and explore the framework and practical steps that can guide us toward a more resilient, locally grounded future.
