Re Tamatoa

COURT OR TRIBUNAL

New Zealand Immigration and Protection Tribunal

DATE FILED (OR FIRST HEARING DATE)

23/03/2023

LITIGATION TYPE

Constitutional and Human Rights / State Accountability

SUBJECT MATTER

Human rights and refugee claims

REVIEW TYPE

Merits review

SUMMARY

The Tribunal considered the impacts of climate change when undertaking their assessment of the appellant’s circumstances. See, for example, the below extract from the judgment:

[41] Tvalu consists of nine low-lying island atolls spread over some 500,000 square kilometres in the western Pacific, some 1,100 kilometres north of Fiji. The country’s small geographical size and remoteness exacerbates its exposure to climate change and natural disasters. The biggest impact of climate change on Tuvalu includes rising air temperature, more intense and frequent storm surges and decreasing rainfall, as well as total inundation of low-lying coastal parts of Funafuti. Accordingly, the government, together with development partners, have signalled commitment to adaptation measures to respond to and manage climate change impacts […]

[42] The Tribunal has also recently acknowledged how Tuvalu’s population has “adapted to living in a dynamic ecosystem” and that climate change is likely to continue to pose new threats and place stress on livelihoods, and recorded that the community is “likely to need support to adapt and manage disaster risks facing their wellbeing, livelihoods, and infrastructure”; see AV (Tuvalu) [2022] NZIPT 505532.

CASE DOCUMENTS

Re Tamatoa [2023] NZIPT 506015