LCANZI Newsletter - August 2023

Kia ora koutou,

We hope this email finds you well, please see below an update from the last month including changes to our Board members, our new Executive Director, our submissions and more!

AGM minutes

We hosted our 2023 Annual General Meeting on 3 August. Thank you to those of you who attended, especially those that made it to our in person event in either Auckland or Wellington. It was great to connect with some of you in person! Here is the President’s report, and financial statements. We will circulate the minutes later.

Following the AGM we have had a change in our Committee members. We want to say thank you to our outgoing Committee members; Lloyd Kavanagh, Zoe Brentnall and Jennifer Campion.

Big welcome to our new Committee members; Debra Dorrington and Bjørn-Oliver Magsig. Debra is joining the Committee after being LCANZI’s pro bono coordinator and Bjørn-Oliver has recently started chairing our international issues subcommittee.

We also want to welcome Jenny Cooper KC back to the Committee. Jenny stepped down as President earlier in the year due to work commitments but we’re thrilled to have her back on the Committee.

Our current LCANZI Committee is:

  • President: Bronwyn Carruthers KC

  • Treasurer: James Every-Palmer KC

  • Secretary: Sophie Meares

  • Jenny Cooper KC

  • Michael Sharp

  • Cassandra Kenworthy

  • Frankie McKeefry

  • Dr Grant Hewison

  • Debra Dorrington

  • Bjørn-Oliver Magsig

Introducing our new Executive Director - Jessica Palairet

We are pleased to announce that Jessica Palairet is joining us as Executive Director. Jessica will be coordinating our operations going forward so that we can take more effective action on climate change. She will begin working part-time while she completes an International Human Rights Law Fellowship at the United Nations, after which she will return to Aotearoa in November to work for LCANZI full-time. Until now, apart from our Administrator, all our work has been done by volunteers. It is a huge step for us to have a dedicated position to drive and coordinate our climate action. Having an Executive Director with Jessica’s skills and expertise will be a game-changer for LCANZI, and will greatly increase our capacity to undertake climate advocacy:

“Tēnā koutou. It is a great privilege to be joining LCANZI as Executive Director. I am a lawyer from Aotearoa, and am excited to return home later this year to work at LCANZI. I have spent the past year studying and working in climate litigation in New York. Using the law to drive more effective action against climate change is more critical than ever - and our recent success in the ETS judicial review demonstrates the hugely positive impact that LCANZI can have. I will be focused on growing LCANZI, setting the foundations for us to become a more impactful organisation both now and into the future. Ki te kotahi te kākaho ka whati, ki te kāpuia e kore e whati!”

If you want to get in touch with Jessica, you can email her at jessica@lawyersforclimateaction.nz. A big thanks to all our donors who have supported us, in particular Whakatupu Aotearoa, who helped make Jessica's role possible.

Climate change clause bank webinar

On 12 July we hosted a webinar to explain the New Zealand Climate Change Clause Bank. An initiative of Ian MacKenzie, Head of Legal at NZ Green investment Finance, the clause bank was established earlier this year.

Eleven legal firms from across the motu came together to complete this work. Clauses drafted through The Chancery Lane Project were used as a base and developed into drafting that works in the New Zealand context.

The intention has been to develop clauses that are readily acceptable and easy to introduce into our documents.

There are boilerplate provisions that can be described as benign but offer an opportunity for lawyers and their clients to begin to consider climate in their drafting. These clauses deal with the methods of notice and communication.

There are more strident clauses too – requiring dispute resolutions processes to be approached in a climate-friendly way. Other provisions deal with leasing and with shareholder agreement terms.

Use of the precedents is free. You can find them here for downloading and incorporating into your own template library.

You can watch a recording of the webinar here. It is also available alongside our other webinars on our webinars webpage. If you have any suggestions for future webinar topics please email admin@lawyersforclimateaction.nz.

NZLS submission

On August 4 we submitted on the NZLS Climate Change Policy discussion document. Overall our submission was supportive and recognised the significant step in creating the draft policy.

The policy is drafted as a framework, recognising the role the society and its members have in addressing the climate crises. To be effective it will need to be treated a base document only, the launchpad for significant work to come.

Among other things we asked for:

  • guidelines, conversations and education to support a greater understanding of legal climate issues (both for those wishing to be climate change legal experts and lawyers generally);

  • assistance for lawyers to run their legal businesses in a climate conscious way;

  • support for a broadening acceptance of climate change as an issue relevant to the practice of law across the full range of specialities; and

  • transparency from the Law Society as it navigates this new area of endeavour.

You can read our full submission here. It is also available on our projects and resources webpage.

ETS submission

On 11 August the LCANZI ETS subcommittee submitted on Te Arotake Mahere Hokohoko Tukunga - Review of the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme.

The discussion document raised four options for dealing with the problem of unconstrained removals in the NZ ETS, and posed 26 consultation questions. Our submission made a general statement about the difference between gross emissions and forestry removals, and then considered some of the specific consultation questions.

The current structure of the ETS is such that it is far cheaper to remove carbon then to stop the pollution from being emitted in the first place. The ETS incentivises removals that will last only decades, while being ineffective in reducing the release of carbon into the atmosphere that is effectively permanent on human timescales. This overreliance on forestry removals significantly reduces the efficacy of the ETS in meeting our long-term climate targets and the necessary reductions in gross emissions. 

You can read our full submission here. It is also available on our projects and resources webpage.

The Big New Zealand Climate Action Survey

Do you try to take climate action in your life?

The Big New Zealand Climate Action Survey explores people’s perspectives on the social changes that are needed to respond to climate change. It asks big questions about the urgency of climate action; about fairness, equality and justice; and about transformative systemic change. It also asks your opinion on how we can practically bring about the changes that are needed, and the role of individuals and groups in doing this.

The survey takes 15-20 minutes, and you can go in the draw to win one of twenty $20 supermarket vouchers.

If you take any sort of climate action, please fill in this survey on your views on what is needed to respond to climate change.

Ngā mihi maioha for your support and we will update you again soon.

LCANZI Committee

LCANZI