LCANZI Newsletter - November 2022

Kia ora koutou,

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

LCANZI Corporate Governance panel

LCANZI’s Corporate Governance sub-committee hosted a free online panel last month. As promised, here is a link to watch the excellent webinar. It is also posted on our webinar webpage along with other webinars we have hosted or contributed to.

We are in the process of organising our 2023 webinar programme, so if you have a webinar you would like to contribute to or hear from us on, please reach out to us!

Glenbrook Steel Mill submissions

The Glenbrook Steel Mill is in the process of applying for a resource consent to continue it’s operations. Glenbrook Steel Mill currently causes around 15% of Auckland’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions and their application would enable them to continue this until 2056. Current RMA regulations prevent the Council from considering climate change in resource consent applications but this will cease on December 1st (23 days!).

Grant Hewison and Carleton Buckley, LCANZI local government subcommittee Chair and Secretary, submitted against Glenbrook Steel’s application along with Auckland University’s Equal Justice Project. They were the only submitters pushing the climate change issue so we are grateful to them for not letting this consent application slip through! Grant says their submissions were well received and we will keep you updated on the outcome.

Newsroom and Newstalk ZB both covered this if you would like to read more. If you would like to join our local government subcommittee email admin@lawyersforclimateaction.nz.

Will Minister Shaw update our NDC?

Last week Minister Shaw said he is not making any new climate pledges this year ahead of COP27 because of the long-awaited CCC v LCANZI judicial review judgment. This was covered in Olivia Wannan’s Stuff article.

We are pleased that Minister Shaw will revisit New Zealand’s international climate commitment if our judicial review succeeds. However, we are disappointed he hasn’t already acted on the evidence of Prof Forster and Dr Rogelj that the Climate Change Commission made a mathematical error that has given New Zealand an unambitious 2030 target that does not align with holding global temperature rise to 1.5C. Professor Forster and Dr Rogelj were lead authors of the IPCC report the Commission relied on, and they say the Commission misapplied it. Their evidence is available on our website, and summarised here. New Zealand can and should act now to make more ambitious targets that align with the science.

We expressed this disappointment on our twitter last Friday, our twitter is very active if you’re looking for more frequent LCANZI and climate law updates. You can follow us here.

Get involved in COP27

As you may be aware, COP27 is happening this month from 6-18 November in Egypt. COP27 is the conference of the parties who signed the 2015 Paris Agreement coming together to decide what the specific rules should be in order to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees. Meeting this goal is essential in order to avoid catastrophic climate change and COP27 is crucial to determine how each country will do their part to achieve it. New Zealand is known to not be doing enough in terms of climate action and last year we were awarded Fossil of the Day by the Climate Action Network (CAN).

There are several events that you may be interested in attending online as part of COP27:

Christchurch conversations

LCANZI members have been invited to the next Christchurch Conversation on 8 Nov: 'How do we grow a climate action city for everyone?' which is at Tūranga from 6-7.30pm. You can book for this free event on Humanitix. The event is both live and livestreamed - so members outside Ōtautahi can also join online. The speaker event will be livestreamed here.

Those in Ōtautahi are welcome to gather with the rest of the Christchurch Conversations audience from 5.30-6pm, before the speakers speak from 6pm.

He Waka Eke Noa submissions

The Government has released its consultation document on He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN), the system by which agricultural emissions will be priced (other New Zealand industry emissions are priced under the Emissions Trading Scheme).

Submissions on HWEN are crucial because agriculture causes 50% of New Zealand’s emissions. Greenpeace have outlined the failures of the proposal in its current form in this press release.

There has been a lot of media coverage of the proposal:

LCANZ’s ETS subcommittee and agriculture subcommittee will be collaborating on a submission and we encourage you all to submit here. We will put our submission in the next newsletter. If you would like to join either our ETS or Agriculture subcommittee please email admin@lawyersforclimateaction.nz.

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

Kia pai tō rā whakatā! 

LCANZI Committee

LCANZI