Insley v Minister of Climate Change

COURT OR TRIBUNAL

High Court of New Zealand

DATE FILED (OR FIRST HEARING DATE)

05/06/2023

LITIGATION TYPE

Constitutional and Human Rights / State Accountability

SUBJECT MATTER

Transparency/disclosure

REVIEW TYPE

Judicial review

SUMMARY

• The ‘newsroom’ article available here provides background and context to the HCA proceeding. An extract from the article is included below:

"On Monday, the High Court dismissed the application from Te Taumata for interim orders preventing the Government from making announcements on reforms to the Emissions Trading Scheme. Te Taumata represents Māori trade interests, including Māori foresters.

Chair Chris Insley sought the orders late last week, claiming the Government was breaching its obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and personal guarantees to meaningfully engage with Māori prior to wider consultation on the changes. A hearing was held on Friday. A broader application for judicial review of the situation is still set to proceed.

[…]

At issue is the treatment of forestry under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Right now, foresters earn a carbon unit for every tonne of carbon dioxide sequestered by their trees. Emitters then purchase those units to cover their own greenhouse pollution.

New Zealand is the only country with an ETS that allows for unlimited forestry units. The Climate Change Commission reiterated in April, in its strongest ever wording, that the current state of affairs means New Zealand is unlikely to actually cut climate pollution. Instead, we'll keep burning fossil fuels and offsetting those emissions by planting exotic pines on ever-greater swathes of land.

To change this, the Government launched a review of the ETS to figure out what balance of gross emissions cuts versus forestry removals it should deliver and how it could be reformed to accomplish this. The commission also recommended changes to reduce incentives for forestry offsets in the ETS.

An earlier attempt by the Government to cut off an explosion in pine planting failed after opposition from Māori foresters. Māori own a disproportionate amount of marginal land that is suited to little more than forestry, and iwi run a third of the country's plantation forests. While Māori forestry groups have plans to transition pine forests to native forests over 50 years, the commission and Government want to see native planting take over much more quickly.

The High Court case had relatively little focus on these substantive issues. Instead, it dealt with Insley's claim that the release of the discussion document alone would seriously harm Māori foresters and that the Government needed to engage better with Te Taumata before launching public consultation. […]"

CASE DOCUMENTS

Insley v Minister of Climate Change [2023] NZHC 1388