New Zealand is set to lift a six-year ban on offshore oil and gas exploration to address energy security concerns in the face of declining natural gas reserves. The ban, implemented in 2018 by then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, restricted exploration outside onshore Taranaki. One must wonder here what the future of wind power and heat pumps is, if even a prime candidate like New Zealand is opting to go back to fossil fuels instead of accelerating investment in the aforementioned clean energy sources. New Zealand is number 58 in the global electricity production ranking and 14 in the regional Asia Pacific list according to the IEA, so the needle on climate change won’t be affected much. But when you…