“Aerospace for Good” was the focus of the 2024 Aerospace Summit held last week but peace activists protested what they said were greenwashing and military ties to weapons of war.
The summit was held at Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre and one group, Stop the Space Waste, protested outside with drums and megaphones, giving speeches on why they believed space should be kept for peace.
Stop the Space Waste is a peace action group founded last year to protest the aerospace industry’s connections to the military. It is led by youth peace activists from a variety of backgrounds, who believe Aotearoa should not be involved in foreign military weapons technology.
The Aerospace Summit welcomed 50 experts in the field and more than 700 aerospace professionals and enthusiasts and members of Stop the Space Waste also booked tickets to be inside the conference.
Stop the Space Waste member Rosie Cruickshank said, “I went to raise this issue directly and give a voice to those whose lives are at stake over this.”
Another member, Cora Scott, a School Strike 4 Climate Ōtautahi activist, said being in a room full of self-interested people patting themselves on the back and believing they had no responsibility was scary.
“But I hope at least a few of them won’t be able to get my voice out of their heads and will be moved to do better,” she said.
Te Ao Māori News spoke at length with one of the group members, activist Aurora Garner-Randolph whose activism began at 16 years old as a School Strike for Climate organiser.
Garner-Randolph said this event included executives from Lockheed Martin and Boeing, the first and fourth biggest weapons companies in the world, whose weapons had been implicated in the civilian deaths in Palestine.
Te Tiriti obligations
Last week the Māori Working Group on Aerospace said it hadn’t been consulted for the government’s new strategy for space and advanced aviation. The new strategy has no mention of Māori or Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which was a drastic shift from the 2023 strategy.
The 2023 Aotearoa Aerospace Strategy said the government looked forward to working with Māori and emphasised the need to address barriers for Māori and other minority groups.
There was an entire section on engaging Māori in aerospace; working with Māori businesses and collectives, sector development initiatives engaging Māori expertise and ensuring Māori can excel in the sector through opportunities, employment and training. It also acknowledged the aerospace sector needed to be consistent with Crown’s commitments under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Greenwashing in ‘aerospace for good’
The summit focused on “Aerospace for good”, which Stop the Space Waste agrees with. Garner-Randolph said her group welcomed the use of satellite technology in supporting adaptation to climate change.
However, the group said there was greenwashing (making false or misleading statements about the environmental benefits of a product or practice).
Garner-Randolph said the aerospace industry liked to talk about its climate initiatives and it did do valuable work in that area “but the fact is the most effective way to reduce emissions is to stop doing unnecessary launches for the military” forces of the world.
“You can’t have a sustainable bomb, you can’t be producing vast quantities of rockets for monitoring civilian populations and making drones for military purposes. You reduce emissions by just not doing that.”
Garner-Randolph also said New Zealand should be critical of other wasteful technologies such as a startup in Ōtautahi called Wisk.
Wisk is an aerospace manufacturer based in California that develops self-flying electric air taxis and is a fully-owned subsidiary of Boeing.
Wisk NZ has received Toitū Net Carbonzero certification, which means it is considered to be measuring, reducing and offsetting its carbon footprint.
Despite the certification, Garner-Randolph said the technological components and rare earth minerals needed for battery-powered equipment like the aero taxis were still environmentally damaging.
“If we actually want to live in harmony with the earth, it means giving up on producing unnecessary technology, which only serves as a plaything for the ultrarich,” she said.
“We shouldn’t be predicating our economy on catering to the ultrarich to take Ubers in the sky when so many people in Aotearoa are struggling to get by.”
Rakon’s possible connection to smart bombs
Rakon is a listed NZ electronics manufacturer, which has faced some controversies over the years.
It is one of the five global market leaders in the crystal oscillator market. Crystal oscillators are used in clocks, radios, computers, and the guidance system of Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) smart bombs.
The NZ Herald has reported that Rakon’s 2005 business plan had a three to five year goal to “dominate the lucrative and expanding guided munitions and military positioning marking”.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has said the US sends JDAM guided missiles to Israel. Amnesty International has reported US-made JDAMs were used by Israel in two confirmed air strikes on civilian homes in Gaza which killed 43 civilians - including 19 children.
Rakon has denied supplying products to Israel and the company said it was not aware of its products being incorporated into weapons provided to Israel.
Garner-Randolph argued the company was being “deliberately opaque”.
“The bottom line is the New Zealand government should fully investigate Rakon’s connections to the US and Israel and force any companies producing weapons components for the US or Israel to end sales.”
Rocket Lab’s Treaty and nuclear-free stance
Garner-Randolph said the group was also protesting the ties to Rocket Lab, which she believed had violated New Zealand’s nuclear-free stance.
Rocket Lab is a New Zealand start-up founded by Kiwi Peter Beck in 2006. The company developed an American arm and moved its headquarters to the United States in 2013 to become a US company, though it continues its R&D and building rockets in Auckland, and launching rockets at its Mahia Peninsula launchpad.
In 2021 Rocket Lab launched satellites for the United States military, which weren’t nuclear payloads in themselves but could facilitate the command and control of nuclear weapons.
This facilitation was considered a breach of New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation, as Wayne Mapp the former deputy chair of the public advisory committee on disarmament and arms control (PACDAC) told Newshub at the time.
Garner-Randolph also said Rocket Lab had violated Te Tiriti o Waitangi by launching missiles connected to US military without consent or consultation from local iwi Ngāti Rongomaiwahine.
Space for peace not war
She said they believed space should be kept for peace but a significant proportion of launches in New Zealand were for military purposes.
“We’re at a really critical turning point where we can get further and further involved in America’s nefarious imperialism in the Middle East, or we can maintain a really strong independent foreign policy and keep Aotearoa’s peace legacy alive.”
She said there needed to be a “clear line in the sand” where businesses weren’t using technologies for military applications for foreign militaries or other wasteful technologies.
She said it was worrying the government was becoming closer to the US, which is the biggest military spender globally, spending US$916 billion in 2023 (SIPRI Military Expenditure Database) and emits more carbon emissions than entire industrial countries like Denmark and Portugal.
Garner-Randolph said it was bad for the climate crisis but also provided military backing for “violent genocides around the world, most pressingly in Palestine”.
“We think Aukus Pillar 2 is deeply dangerous. Aotearoa shouldn’t be increasing global tensions by joining military alliances with the United States,” she said.
“We need to be focusing on humanitarian issues and not dragging ourselves further into economic ties with a war machine.”