Minister for Transport Sued over EV Regulations
Legal action launched over Government’s anti-climate policy
Through our pro bono matching service, Lawyers for Climate Action NZ has supported the Better New Zealand Trust to take the Government to court over its unlawful decision to weaken the Clean Car Standard.
The Government’s own advice shows this will reduce the uptake of low-emission vehicles and increase New Zealand’s greehouse gas emissions, while ignoring the Emissions Reduction Plan targets.
The Clean Car Standard requires newly imported vehicles to meet a target for average emissions per kilometre. Importers that fail to meet the target can pay a penalty to the Government or buy surplus credits from importers that import more low- and zero-emissions vehicles. The targets reduce each year, helping to drive the uptake of cleaner vehicles.
In July, after secret talks with selected stakeholders and no public consultation, the Government announced it would weaken the Clean Car Standard targets in future years.
The Government’s own modelling shows that this move will result in 39,000 fewer electric vehicles and 19,000 fewer plug-in hybrids being registered in New Zealand by 2035. The official advice found this will result in 1,215-1,860kt higher emissions by 2050, and higher overall costs to the economy through greater fuel and maintenance bills.
Under the Land Transport Act, in setting targets under the Clean Car Standard, the Minister of Transport is required to be satisfied that the targets: “are set at an appropriate level to increase the supply of zero- and low-emission vehicles in the market” and “consistent with transport-specific policies and strategies set out in the emissions reduction plan”.
The new targets mean that the supply of zero- and low-emission vehicles in the market will decrease compared to the previous targets and that the Emissions Reduction Plan target to have 30% of the fleet EVs by 2035 is going to be that much harder to achieve. As a result, the Better New Zealand Trust, which advocates for EVs, has launched a judicial review of the Minister’s decision to adopt the new targets.
Along with the removal of the Clean Car Discount, the Government has rolled back many of the most important transport emissions reductions policies, despite the fact that transport emissions represent around 39% of New Zealand’s domestic CO2 emissions. Reducing transport emissions should be the low hanging fruit.
The justification behind this change - that there is insufficient international supply of EVs and hybrids to meet the targets - doesn’t hold water. Before this wave of anti-clean car policies began, EVs hit a peak of 20% of new car registrations and hybrids reached 56%. Other countries are already beating the emissions targets that we had set for 2027.
Far from imposing high costs on vehicle buyers, as the Government claims, the previous Clean Car Standard targets would have provided a powerful financial incentive for importers to focus on bringing more zero- and low-emission vehicles to market.
In this claim, the Better New Zealand Trust is asking the court to quash the Minister's Clean Car Standard regulations and replace them with targets that comply with the law and have been developed following meaningful consultation.