LCANZI Newsletter - May 2023
Kia ora koutou,
We hope this email finds you well, please see below an update from the last month including our next litigation project, our AGM date and an opportunity to contribute to our next submission!
Judicial Review against Minister for Climate Change following failed ETS auction
Last week, we filed High Court proceedings seeking judicial review of the Climate Change (Auctions, Limits, and Price Controls for Units) Amendment Regulations 2022.
In December last year, Cabinet rejected the advice of the Climate Change Commission and the recommendations of the Minister of Climate Change about what the ETS volume and price settings should be. The effect of the Cabinet decision was to make available at low prices an additional 35 million units over the next five years. That is more than one year’s worth of emissions for sectors within the ETS.
Our judicial review claims that in overriding the recommendations from the Commission and the Minister, Cabinet failed to address whether the settings were in accordance with the emissions budgets and the NDC. Instead the decision was driven by concerns that rising ETS unit prices would flow through to households. LCANZI seeks a declaration from the Court that the regulations are inconsistent with the Climate Change Response Act, and an order that the regulations be remade.
You can read more about the judicial review on our website here.
You can read the Statement of Claim here.
AGM save the date
Our 2023 AGM will be on Thursday 3 August at 5pm. We are returning to in-person options for the first time in a couple of years! The AGM will be in Auckland and Wellington with a zoom option for those who can’t make it in person.
More details coming soon, watch this space!
LCANZI submission on the CCC’s advice on the next ERP
The Climate Change Commission is consulting on its draft advice to Government on the second emissions reduction plan (covering 2026 - 2030).
You can read the full consultation document here. We also encourage all our members to make their own submission here.
We want to know what our members think to help inform our submission. If you have comments/thoughts/suggestions that you think might help us, you can share these with us using this form. Bullet points or more substantive comments are fine - we would love to hear your ideas.
The form follows the structure of the CCC's consultation document and has some prompts in each section. We would be grateful if you follow these (to help us organise the ideas we receive), although you can also use the general section in the last text box.
Email admin@lawyersforclimateaction.nz if you have any questions about the form.
Thank you in advance for your time!
Auckland Climate Festival
The annual Auckland Climate Festival will run from 31 August to 29 September later this year. It is a space to celebrate, catalyse and accelerate climate action. It provides the opportunity for Aucklanders to engage in climate action through attending a diverse range of events, initiatives and activations across the region.
LCANZI and our members have been involved in the last two Festivals and we’re excited continue our involvement. We welcome any event ideas from our members and would appreciate planning/hosting assistance. Please email admin@lawyersforclimateaction.nz!
LCANZI Submission impacts: peaks and pits
As you may know, our LCANZI subcommittees are constantly submitting on various central and local government decisions and consultations.
Unfortunately this doesn’t always go to plan and we get disappointing news. For example, late last year LCANZI Committee member and Local Government subcommittee chair, Dr Grant Hewison, supported the Auckland University Equal Justice Project at the NZ Steel consent hearing on air discharges at the Glenbrook Steel Mill. We gave further context for this in our November 2022 newsletter. The consent hearing was weeks before RMA regulations preventing the Council from considering climate change in resource consent applications ceased.
Last month we were disappointed to learn that the Environment Minister, David Parker, rejected Ministry for the Environment’s advice to step in a stop the application from going through without consideration of greenhouse gases. This means that one of New Zealand’s biggest polluters, Glenbrook Steel Mill, can continue operations for upwards of 20 years. Grant gave his comments in this Stuff article.
However, with disappointing news there comes great news! LCANZI’s Financial Disclosures subcommittee, chaired by Lloyd Kavanagh, submitted on the mandatory climate related disclosures regime (CRD). Our submissions were instrumental in shaping New Zealand’s CRD and we are leading the world in these types of regulations. Lloyd has written an article explaining this further which you can read here.
LCANZI will continue to make submissions and use our voices to encourage climate action. Email admin@lawyersforclimateaction.nz if you are interested in joining any of our subcommittees.
Connecting our members - power in numbers!
Some of our members have told us that they want to connect with other members. If you consent to us giving your name, city/town, and email address to other members, email admin@lawyersforclimateaction.nz with the subject line ‘Connect me!’, and if we have members looking to meet up (either in your city or electronically), we'll connect you.
Thank you for your ongoing support of LCANZI, we couldn’t do this mahi without our amazing members! We will check in again next month with another update.
LCANZI Committee