Lawyers for Climate Action's message to the new Minister of Climate Change

Lawyers for Climate Action New Zealand has written to the new Minister of Climate Change, Hon Simon Watts, and the new Associate Minister, Hon Nicola Willis, urging the Ministers to take meaningful steps to address the climate crisis. We provide our perspective on two particular issues: the Emissions Trading Scheme, and on the need for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its climate targets.

The new ministers have been appointed at a critically important time for the climate. The window of opportunity to limit warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels is rapidly closing - and it’s vital that the government remains seriously committed to meeting our climate targets.

We are very concerned about recent statements made by the new Resources Minister and Associate Energy Minister, Hon Shane Jones, who said yesterday that NZ would “not meet the 2030 dreamy fairytale aspirational" NDC, and that he would "bring rigour and commonsense to the hysteria surrounding climate change".

These statements were made in the midst of ongoing COP28 negotiations, and also on the same day as the Climate Change Commission released its 2023 advice on the direction of policy for NZ’s second emission reduction plan. That advice shows that to meet our climate targets, between 2026 and 2030, Aotearoa New Zealand needs to reduce its climate pollution by the equivalent of 43.5 megatons of carbon dioxide - and that replacing fossil fuels, like coal, gas, and petrol, is critical.

In our letter, we suggest that the Government make changes to the ETS so that it is fit-for-purpose. Whatever happens to the current review of the ETS, which the National/NZ First Coalition Agreement has indicated will be stopped, the ETS needs to better incentivise emissions reductions - not just removals.

We are also concerned that Aotearoa New Zealand is not currently on track to meet its 2030 NDC - and has no clear plans in place for how it intends to address this. We are encouraged by Simon Watts’ stated commitment to meeting the 2030 NDC, which he made in a speech at COP28 this week. However, we are still waiting to hear how the new Government will actually meet this commitment. Given Aotearoa’s failure to tackle gross emission reductions to date, it will most likely have to rely significantly on offshore mitigation to meet the 2030 NDC. But there is currently no clarity about how this might be achieved, and it has not been budgeted for.

Watering down or failing to meet our NDC is not an option - we consider that this would be inconsistent with our obligations under the Paris Agreement, the purpose of the Climate Change Response Act, and also our obligations under the EU Fair Trade Agreement (once ratified), which includes an obligation to “effectively implement the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, including commitments with regard to NDCs”.

You can read our full letter to the Ministers here