Lawyers for Climate Action NZ (LCANZI) sent a letter to climate change minister Simon Watts and transport minister Simeon Brown yesterday, saying they considered it unlawful for the government’s policy statement on land transport to ignore the first emissions reduction plan.

The transport policy statement came into effect yesterday. It sets out how the government will invest in land transport for the next ten years and includes $22 billion of funding to be invested into the transport network over the next three years. But has been widely criticised as likely to lock in higher emissions.

Jessica Palairet, executive director at LCANZI, says the government’s transport policy shows New Zealand doesn’t currently have an operative emissions reduction plan.

“The Government has ditched the emissions reduction plan adopted by the last government, but this could leave New Zealand flying blind without any emissions reduction plan until 2026.”

The Climate Change Response Act 2002 requires New Zealand to have emissions reduction plans for each emissions budget period. Those plans lay out the policies and strategies the Government will follow to meet each emissions budget, which are intended to be stepping stones to meeting New Zealand’s 2050 climate targets.

As part of its Q3 Action Plan released yesterday, the Government signalled it is planning to release its draft second emissions reduction plan.

“But that will only cover the next emissions budget period from 2026-2030,” Palairet says.

The problem is that the Government continues to ignore the first emissions reduction plan, which the Climate Change Response Act says covers New Zealand until the end of 2025.

“This means we are facing almost 18 more months with no plan for reducing emissions, despite this being required under the Climate Change Response Act 2002.”

Palairet says the government is entitled to amend the emissions reduction plan. “But it has to consult on any changes which are more than ‘minor and technical’ and it hasn’t done that.

“In the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport, it has simply chosen to ignore the current plan, and forge ahead with its road-heavy transport investments.”

She says the new transport policy takes a sharply different approach from that set out in the first emissions reduction plan, which set a target of reducing transport emissions 41% by 2035.

“While the GPS does provide some funding for public transport projects, it doesn’t include climate change or reducing transport emissions as a strategic priority. The word ‘climate’ only appears once in the GPS - and that’s to say that the Government will rely on the ETS as its ‘key tool to reduce emissions’, placing less reliance on transport policies.”

The GPS explicitly disregards the first emissions reduction plan on the basis that it will start

engagement on the second emissions reduction plan later this year. The lawyer’s letter warns the government that it has proceeded “on the basis of an error of law” in disregarding the first emissions reduction plan.

“We strongly encourage the Government to revisit the GPS in light of the first emissions

reduction plan,” Palairet says. “If it wants to change the approach, then it has to follow the right process - not just ignore the requirements laid out under the Climate Change Response Act”.

LCANZI was founded in 2019 to use the law to “ensure more effective action” in New Zealand against climate change and has more than 350 members including King’s Counsel, barristers, solicitors, and legal academics.

The lawyers have prior form in successful legal action against the government, with their High Court case last year forcing a U-turn in emissions trading scheme settings.

Legal experts have previously said that the government is at risk of litigation if its emissions reduction plan doesn’t cut it, while last month the Ministry of Transport’s former chief science advisor told Carbon News that the government was “not even pretending to try” to reduce transport emissions.