Climate Change Minister Simon Watts has been taken to the Wellington High Court, with lawyers arguing the Government’s emissions reduction plan relies too heavily on forestry offsets, particularly pine plantations, rather than reducing emissions at source.
Tree planting has largely been criticised as a false climate solution because it does not address the source of emissions.
The case focuses on changes to Aotearoa New Zealand’s first Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP1) and the lawfulness of the second plan (ERP2), which sets out how emissions will be reduced between 2026 and 2030.
Te Tai Rāwhiti-based commentator Manu Caddie (Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāi Te Rangi) said the issues raised in the case reflect broader concerns about land use, environmental risk, and the long-term impacts of forestry expansion.
The government supports native planting, but said exotic forestry, including pines, plays a major role in the approach to climate change because it sequesters carbon faster define
Historically, Caddie said pine plantations have generated significant profits for a few, but as seen in Te Tai Rāwhiti, they have often been planted on already vulnerable land. This has resulted in damage to communities as plantations replaced farms, provided only intermittent work, and caused erosion affecting marae and urupā, leaving communities more vulnerable to extreme weather events.
ELI’s Senior Legal Researcher, Eliza Prestidge Oldfield, said the government is taking a “least cost” approach to policy, where it is cheaper to plant trees than to upgrade fossil fuel equipment, such as swapping coal boilers for electrified heating.
“We say that’s not good enough and leaves mokopuna to bear the burden in the future,” said Oldfield.
“Tree planting can complement emissions reductions, but they should not replace emission reduction policies purely because tree planting is the cheapest thing to do.”
On a policy level, like many others including the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Oldfield said she would like to see a focus on native trees, “in particular, restoring wetlands which has huge benefits for biodiversity as well as the climate.”
Pine plantations and Māori land impacts
If tree planting is the primary focus of the Government’s climate approach, this leaves Māori landowners with the option to offer their land for plantations to offset carbon emissions
One of the risks, Caddie said, is that the land could be locked into unsustainable use for potentially 100 years—three cycles of pines—while the carbon market favours initial investors and landowners receive small returns.
“And then you have the added risk of reducing the opportunity for the ngahere to return, and for other more innovative industries to be established that can be based on our taonga species that are the ones that should be on the whenua, because you’re locked your land into exotic pine trees for 100 years.”
Caddie stressed all taxpayers have a right to access good-quality roads and transport systems.
“The challenges are there with the geology but we should expect this government to be looking after everybody rather than just those it’s the easiest to look after.”
False climate solutions and policy critique
Caddie said it was telling that Justice David Boldt described the Government’s process as “as fundamentally flawed a process as I think I have ever seen.”
He said the judge’s remarks raised serious questions about the strength of the plan, which he characterised as rushed and driven by early political commitments rather than a full consideration of the science and practical impacts.
The legal challenge states that 35 actions and projects were discontinued from ERP1, including the Clean Car Discount and the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) fund. The GIDI fund supported businesses to transition away from fossil fuels by investing in cleaner and more energy-efficient technologies. The Clean Car Discount provided rebates to incentivise the purchase of lower-emissions vehicles, such as electric and hybrid cars, which aimed to reduce New Zealand’s transport emissions.
He said Māori-centric policy would think generationally, not just about immediate financial returns.
“Rather than planting more pine trees, we really need to reduce our emissions quickly, and we need policies that are going to incentivise that rather than make it easier to continue polluting and putting more pine trees on good land around the country.”
Next steps in court
ELI and Lawyers for Climate Action asked the High Court to declare the decisions unlawful and require the Government to reconsider the plan.
“I am aware of the judicial review brought by Lawyers for Climate Action and Environmental Law Initiative. As the matter is before the courts, I can’t comment further,” Minister Simon Watts said.
The groups are seeking declarations that changes to ERP1 were unlawful and that ERP2 does not meet the required legal standard, but they await the Court’s judgement.
Caddie said it will be interesting to see the outcome from the court and hopes it will help reverse some of the worst impacts of the climate change legislation.
