The head of Solid Energy says Southland's lignite reserves should be used to help the world's poor.
Don Elder made his plea for community support at a symposium on the future of coal held in Wellington on Tuesday.
Several companies, including Solid Energy, are developing plans to turn the lignite into heating briquettes, urea fertiliser and diesel.
Dr Elder says five billion people in the world are clamouring for the resources possessed by rich countries like New Zealand and they should be supplied for mutual benefit.
But one of the world's foremost climate scientists, James Hansen, says using all the lignite in the world would lift the oceans 75 metres and leave the Earth ice-free.
