Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on Lawyers for Climate Action taking the Government's climate policies to court

A group of lawyers are taking the Government's climate policies to court.

Lawyers for Climate Action have filed a judicial review, calling for a probe of the coalition cancelling the previous Government's projects - under the emissions reduction plan.

They claim the plan fails to uphold the Climate Change Response Act.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan explains why this is taking place - and what could come of it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editors, with us. Hey, Thomas,
good afternoon. So is labor going to allow? What is
Labour's position on farmers in the et? So have they
made up their mind here?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Oh, this has been going on since two thousand and eight.
Labor labors wanted some form of the missions pricing for
farmers the last government. They went into government saying, look,
agriculture is going to go into their easy yes in
some way. They eventually swerved into the hawaka you canoa
if you can remember that, and that eventually resulted in
some form of emissions pricing for agricultural emissions, a split

(00:34):
guest approach or into the eaty yes. If that all
fell apart, and then obviously the Coalition came into power
and got rid of that. So Chris Epkins went on
The Herald Now showed this morning and said that all
of ex policy is under review, all of them, all
of Labor's policy is under review, and that means that

(00:55):
there will be an a missions policy from Labor, but
just what it is wait and see. So no one
really knows that the wish.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
I'm reluctant to get excited about this because these guys
in labor you know how they are. They float ideas
like this, and then they have a giant fight with
each other because everybody has to be consulted in caucus,
and the policy unit has to be consulted in the
unions have to be consulted, and the membership has to
be consulted. And then by the end of it, you know,
nothing really changed.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yes, I mean what did Margaret Thatcher say the problem
about socialism was too many meetings?

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
And labor labor does you know, to be and not
high love a good meeting, but labor labor does. It's
fair to say love a good meeting. It's hard to
know this. The current the Chris Hipkins Labor Party is,
it is hard to know where it lands on a
lot of these issues. The Greens and Party Maori are
very keen for I mean, a large part of the
greens one hundred billion dollar revenue change was money coming

(01:45):
in from climate change etes stuff. So the Greens are
pretty into into, you know, full on emissions pricing. Labor is.
It's very hard to know where al end up. But
I would imagine if they end up with a policy
that's too so. And Jacinda Jones policy on cultural emissions.
It was quite soft that was there were the agricultural

(02:06):
emission would have been heavily discounted. If labor goes in
too soft, they're going to face a member's revolves. So
I think you're right here there. I think it will
be wherever they land, it will it will be something
that involves pricing.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, does he does?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
He?

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Is he just just floating this as an idea before
field day so that the farmers don't give him too
hard a time as he walks through.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yes, I think he was asked about it obviously this
field days, which is why he was asked about it.
And then I imagine Chrispkinsaw's life flashing before his eyes
and thought, there's no way I'm going to talk about
emissions pricing before hitting the mystery three. And you know what,
probably probably that's that's the political radar that you hear.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
I mean talking about Daniel and the Lions. Dan, I
absolutely would say something is dumb as this as well
as him as well. Listen, if you managed to get
a hold of any of these climate lawyers suing the government.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, I just actually got off the blow from from
from lawyers for climate action. A really interesting case. And
you know, talking about consultation actually, because you do need
to consult on a lot of this, a lot of
this submissions stuff. And they are arguing that the government's
changes to the first emissions Plan, so that was the
Labour put up the first emissions reduction plan. This government
they amended it significantly. They're arguing that the process wasn't

(03:17):
followed properly and they want sort of declaration to that
effect from the court. That's that's sort of interesting, you know,
going forward, how how governments changed their missions plans. The
big thing though, the big thing is the second plan,
so that that's the one that the coalition government has published.
They are arguing that this second plan does not meet
the goals of the Act, which is to reduce emissions

(03:38):
and reduce and warming to one point five degrees you
know whatever, you know, you know that, you know the drill.
They are arguing that the plan doesn't do that. It
relies a lot on unproven technology carbon capture, the light,
too much tree planting, and they want the court to
say so, which would force the government to do it again.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, because Thomas, they're not idiot and they can see,
like all of us. What's about to happen, which is
we're not going to meet the target. We're going to
rely on tree planting, and then we're not going to
plant the trees either, so we're actually going to end
up doing Diddley squat. That's what's going on with.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, and if the court says, if the court agrees
with that assessment says not the second plan is not
good enough, then then Simon Watson, the government is going
to have to go back to the drawing board and
do it again, and that could be quite the cabinet fight.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Interesting very much. Now did you say it was Lawyers
for Climate Action?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Thomas, Yes, I believe that's the group, your lawyers for
Climate Action.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Okay, thank you, Thomas appreciated. Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editors.
You call them, Laura, Lawyers for Climate Action? Is oh
the ore the ones who are going to come on
the are the ones who were going to come on
and then they got busy, did they? Okay, we're not
going to hear from this, So happy to talk to Thomas,
not happy to talk to us.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
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