LCANZI Newsletter - August 2022

Kia ora koutou,

Please see our August newsletter below for an update of the last month.

Annual General Meeting

The 2022 Annual General Meeting for Lawyers for Climate Action NZ (LCANZI) will be held on 11 August 2022 at 5pm. You should have received a couple of emails last month notifying this.

You can register to attend the event here. Once you register, you will receive the Zoom details to attend the event.

Nominations for Committee positions, which will be voted on at the AGM, are open until 5pm on 6 August 2022 (tomorrow). Attached is the nomination form if you would like to be nominated.

The business for the AGM will be as follows:

  • Welcome, introductions, apologies

  • Approval of minutes of previous AGM

  • President’s report

  • Treasurer’s report and approval of financial statements

  • Secretary membership update

  • Sub-committee updates

  • Election of officers and Committee members

  • General business

Documents for the AGM (previous AGM minutes, reports, financial statements, and a list of Committee nominees) will be circulated in the days prior to the AGM.

We hope to see you all there!

ALL ABOARD AOTEAROA JUDICIAL REVIEW

The High Court’s decision in the case against Auckland Transport and Auckland Council for adopting a transport plan that fails to deliver a meaningful reduction in emissions was released on Friday 8 July 2022.

The Court decided that AT and the Council had not acted unlawfully in adopting the RLTP, noting that the RLTP involved high-level policy judgments which the Court was not in a position to evaluate.

“The decision is not an endorsement of the RLTP itself, but a finding that the high threshold of unlawfulness was not reached. We are nevertheless disappointed with the decision. The Government and the Council have issued policy after policy committing to meaningful action on climate change, including the decarbonisation of transport. We expect them to implement those policies and will continue to hold them to account for failing to do so.  The Court decision today does not change that” says All Aboard Spokesperson and LCANZI Committee member, Zoe Brentnall.

You can read All Aboard Aotearoa’s full press release here and you can read the full judgment here.

All Aboard Aotearoa is appealing this decision.

Students for Climate Solutions judicial review

We want to give a massive shoutout to Students for Climate Solutions, represented by Michael Heard and Lee Salmon Long, for their judicial review of energy Minister Megan Woods’ decision to grant two permits to look for new oil and gas fields in Taranaki. The judicial review was heard last week and you can read an article detailing the case here.

Spotlight on Climate related disclosures

Last month, Stuff published an article explaining the downfalls and potential implications of the proposed climate related disclosures regulations. Lloyd Kavanagh, LCANZI Committee member and chair of our Climate Related Disclosures subcommittee, was quoted in this article. As you may know, our LCANZI Climate Related Disclosures subcommittee has submitted to the External Reporting Board (XRB) on their Strategy and Metrics Consultation Document and their Climate-related Disclosures Governance and Risk Management Consultation Document. This article picked up on some of the issues we raised in these submissions.

You can read the article here.

CALL FOR NZLS TO ADOPT CLIMATE CHANGE RESOLUTION

In January this year, LCANZI wrote to NZLS asking the NZLS Board to pass a resolution to provide support for the profession in developing new essential skills needed to build climate conscious practices. We have been invited to make a submission to the Independent Review of the statutory framework for legal services in Aotearoa on the whether any changes to regulation are needed to reflect climate issues. This is due by 12 August and is currently being worked on by our Pro Bono Coordinator Debra Dorrington and Committee member Zoe Brentnall.

LCANZI v CCC judgment timing update

We had hoped the judgment would be released last month but, after receiving an update from the Court, we hope that the decision will be released this month - watch this space!

Client Earth judgment

Huge news out of the UK! Congratulations to ClientEarth, The Good Law Project and Friends of the Earth for their successful Judicial Review of the UK's climate policy. The ruling held that the UK climate policy was too vague and could not assure the Secretary responsible for the budget that it would achieve the statutory goal.

You can read the Good Law Project’s press release here and you can read the judgment here.

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

Kia pai tō rā whakatā! 

LCANZI Committee

LCANZI