Prominent columnist and environmentalist Rod Oram dies

Rod Oram, a treasured Newsroom colleague and leading business and climate commentator in NZ public life for decades, has died in Auckland from injuries suffered in a cycling accident.

Rod, aged 73, died on Tuesday in Auckland Hospital, two days after suffering a cardiac arrest and crashing off his bike at Ambury Park in Māngere Bridge.

A family statement said he passed away peacefully, with his wife Lynn and daughter Celeste and her husband Keir present.

“We thank you for all your messages, thoughts and prayers at this difficult time,” the statement said.

UK-born journalist Oram has been a high-profile contributor to Newsroom almost since our foundation in 2017, with strongly argued weekly columns focused on the economy, business and more lately on the climate and ecological crises facing the country and globe.

He reported from three big global COP climate summits for Newsroom and was planning to attend the next, in Azerbaijan, in November.

Rod was a passionate cyclist, repeatedly completing New Zealand-wide events and in recent years riding with groups across Asia and the Caucasus as part of a life goal to complete a combined route from Beijing to his birth city of Birmingham in the UK.

He had just stepped back from writing weekly for Newsroom, to make time to research and write longer, on bigger issues, monthly. And part of his motivation was to free himself to write a book on that huge continent-crossing ride – using it to summarise the change he has seen in the world in a reporting career since first going to China in the 1970s.

Last year, while riding many weeks in the Caucasus, he sent us an email of apology:

“Greetings from Karakol, Kyrgyzstan. I’m sorry to say, tho, I won’t be able to write a column this week because of ill health … this is particularly disappointing to me because this is the first time ever in my career!

“The reason is the first three days of our tour were long, hilly rides in brutally hot temperatures, hotter than expected.

“All three days they were in the high 30s and we were on the road for about 8 hours each day. I thought I was drinking enough the first day – I set a new personal best of 10 bike water bottles = 7.5 litres. But I was still dehydrated that evening, so ate poorly; then compounded all that on the second day; tho third was a bit better.”

Rod came to New Zealand in 1998 to launch the Business Herald section of the New Zealand Herald. He had been a writer and editor at the Financial Times newspaper, reporting from the UK, Asia and North America.

His ambitious, high-calibre journalism set the new business section apart and in some ways changed the face of corporate and economic reporting in that era. 

After leaving the Herald, Rod then contributed a star column at the Sunday Star-Times paper for about a decade and a half, and was a regular business commentator on RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme.

A committed Anglican, he was active in Church activities in the city as part of St Andrew’s parish community, and was an early advocate for green, sustainable living.

Rod’s commitment to faith, family and the world we live in was allied to a rare dedication to writing on the big issues and trying to help people understand the crises of today.

His faith links paid off for him last November at the global climate summit in Dubai. Crossed wires between the organisers meant he arrived at the venue to find he did not have accreditation to enter the key areas where most of the action took place.

Committed as always and not to be put off, he found a way, messaging us:

“Yippee! I have access to the Blue Zone, the epicentre of COP, thanks to a friend at an NGO adding me to its delegation as an observer. And the NGO? The World Evangelical Alliance. If asked I’ll simply say I gave up hope on help from my government so I appealed to a higher authority.”

In his penultimate column for Newsroom, he explained his move to monthly commentary:

“I want to keep making through Newsroom my small contribution to those towering challenges. [and] it will be my great privilege and pleasure to report daily for you from the annual United Nations’ annual climate conference – this year, it’s COP29 in Azerbaijan in November.”

“Of course, humanity’s crises are fearsomely complex and fiendishly hard to solve. The solutions are very elusive.

“I am still sure, though, that New Zealand is better placed than many countries to devise and implement them. Our abundant natural capital, distinctive cultures, small scale, close connections and global relationships are some of our advantages.”

Rod was an Edmund Hillary Fellow, a “community of 500-plus innovators, entrepreneurs and investors committed to New Zealand as a basecamp for global impact”.

After filing his last Sustainable Future newsletter for Newsroom last Wednesday, Rod was off again taking up the good fight: “Apologies I’ve written long. But I’m sending it now because I’m scooting off to speak at a regen ag meeting in the Far North.”

A personal note: On behalf of all at Newsroom, we send our deep love and condolences to Lynn, Celeste and Keir, and Rod’s sisters, wider family and friends. He lit up our team with his personality and his peerless work and is deeply missed by journalists here and in many newsrooms for his patience, generosity, help and care over so many years.