On Sunday LCANZI made a submission on Auckland Council’s draft Regional Land Transport Plan (RTLP). LCANZI submits that the RLTP is unlawful. The law requires the RLTP to be “in the public interest”. The Council has made clear in its Climate Plan what this means: to halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, including by reducing transport emissions by 64% from 2016 levels. The draft RTLP does not achieve this. Instead, it provides for transport emissions to increase 6% by 2031, or at best reduce by 12% if the Government puts in place certain policies.

The Financial Sector (Climate-related Disclosures and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, which will introduce the Climate-Related Financial Disclosures regime, has been introduced to Parliament.

Today, All Aboard Aotearoa filed a judicial review application against Waka Kotahi and the Waka Kotahi Waka Kotahi in the High Court at Wellington.

Yesterday we filed our submissions on the Climate Change Commission’s draft advice. We support the Commission’s objectives, but we have some significant concerns that need to be addressed.

LCANZ has prepared a factsheet on the proposed climate-related financial disclosures regime.

Today we had our first zoom webinar. We discussed the Climate Change Commission’s draft advice, and LCANZI’s intended submissions.

Read our letter to Hon Dr Megan Woods - Minister of Energy and Resources regarding the terms of the Mineral Exploration Permits: Block Offers 2019 and 2020.

OPINION: Cities are critical in the global effort to tackle climate change. On Friday, the climate-focused megacity organisation C40 announced that 54 of the world’s largest cities are on track to meet their obligations. These cities show what Auckland can achieve with the same commitment.

Auckland has been a C40 member since 2015; admitted – despite our smaller size – on the basis that we would be an “Innovator City”.

On 6 November 2020, LCANZI had the opportunity to meet with two members of The Climate Change Commission, Dr Carr and Mathew Smith. We followed up with two letters to The Climate Change Commission. The first letter outlined The Climate Change Commission’s legal obligation to ensure that its advice is consistent with the purposes of the Climate Change Response Act (CCRA). We then followed up with a further letter raising three issues which the Commission needs to get right in its advice on the NDC, emissions budgets and the emissions reduction plan.

The aim of this guide is to be a resource for individuals and/or firms wanting to cut their carbon. We have collated the necessary information and resources to make the case for cutting carbon to your senior leadership team.

Auckland needs to decarbonise its transport by 2030 to keep temperatures within 1.5°C. LCANZI is pleased to support Generation Zero (and other climate advocacy groups) to help show our leaders that we will hold them accountable to keeping their commitments and duties under the Zero Carbon Act and Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri (Auckland's Climate Plan).

We need you to sign the letter. In the coming week, Generation Zero will send off the open letter and will present it, along with our technical policy plan, to the new government after the election.

Thank you to everyone who attended our AGM.

If you were unable to attend, you can watch the full AGM here.

If you would like to watch (or share) the presentation from our guest speaker, Paul Winton from the 1point5 Project, you can watch it here.

We are inviting all our members and associate members (and any one who is interesting in joining LCANZI) to join us as we attend to AGM business and celebrate the first year of LCANZI’s operations.

5.30pm, Thursday 6 August 2020 | Ellen Melville Centre, 2 Freyberg Place, Auckland

With only a few days’ notice given for submissions on this Bill, Tom Bennion, with support from a number of other members, prepared a written submission in record time.

You can read our submission here.

Local government is a critical area for climate action and keeping councils and council controlled organisations to task is important. For that reason, and alongside the Equal Justice Project, an Auckland based student organisation, LCANZI made a submission on the Auckland Council’s Emergency Budget on 18 June 2020.

The overall message of our submission was that climate change initiatives should not be delayed due to the financial impact of COVID-19. Our letter also set out our view that Auckland Council, like all other local authorities, has statutory responsibilities that require it to address climate change.

Transport is a significant contributor to New Zealand’s emissions. LCANZI wrote to the Board of Auckland Transport on 16 June calling for its Statement of Intent for 2020-2030 to include a commitment to pursue measures to reduce Auckland’s transport emissions consistent with the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming to 1.5C. We also set out the reasons why we believe Auckland Transport has legal obligations to consider the climate change impacts and risks of its investment and policy decisions, and to ensure these are consistent with Auckland Council and the government’s climate change targets.

With New Zealand’s response to COVID-19 being applauded around the world, now is the time to show similar leadership in climate change policy and action says Lawyers for Climate Action NZ Inc (LCANZI).

LCANZI President, Jenny Cooper QC, is calling on the Government to announce its plans for introducing mandatory climate-related financial disclosure before the general election – endorsing the sentiment that “climate change remains the nuclear-free issue of our generation”.

LCANZI strongly supports the proposed introduction of the TCFD climate-related financial disclosure requirements in New Zealand as well as the introduction of a mandatory “comply-or-explain” disclosure regime based on the TCFD framework.

How green was the Budget? Billed as transformational it contains big dollops of cash for the environment, rail, ferries, housing and insulation. So you’d think that climate campaigners would be happy. Errr, nope. The Budget is a missed opportunity to reshape New Zealand to a low-emissions, high-margin economy and leaves us exposed to that other imminent threat, climate change. Listen to three experts unpack the good, the bad and tragically missing from this epic spending spree.

Rod Oram is a business journalist specialising in sustainable development, writing for Newsroom.

Amanda Larsson is the Climate and Energy Campaigner for Greenpeace NZ and an author of the Green New Deal, a plan to accelerate NZ’s progress to a low-emissions future.

Jenny Cooper QC is the president of Lawyers for Climate Action NZ.

Listen to the podcast here.

The 2020 Budget announcement suggests that the Government has been listening to the chorus of voices describing the current crisis as a unique opportunity to “build back better” and to “hit the reset button”, with both phrases appearing in the Minister’s speech. And indeed, the announcement showed welcome glimpses of a greener and more pleasant future, most notably with the commendable $1 billion green jobs package.

But despite the rhetoric, there was not much evidence that the reset button has actually been pushed yet, at least as far as climate is concerned. The Budget is missing any clear commitment to target spending towards the investments required to reduce our emissions by 2030 and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees.