Across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, Māori and other Pacific peoples are on the frontline of climate change. Rising seas, coastal erosion, flooding and extreme weather threaten homes, wāhi tapu, urupā and ancestral lands — places that hold identity, whakapapa and ways of life.
The knowledge, relationships and intergenerational love for whenua and moana that have sustained tangata moana for centuries are now shaping legal efforts to protect them.
At COP31 in Türkiye, representatives from Aotearoa and across the Pacific discussed how that knowledge could inform climate law and accountability. Their kōrero was part of a side event, Customary Law, Tikanga and Indigenous Pathways to Climate Justice, at the Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion.
Aotearoa Climate Action Network’s Aigagalifeli Fepulea‘i-Tapuai led the kōrero, which featured Bianca Ranson (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu ki Whaingaroa), Dr Arama Rata (Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāruahine), and Ozayr Akbar of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).
Ranson presented her father Mike Smith’s case against seven of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest emitters. In 2024, the Supreme Court reinstated Smith’s claims and allowed them to proceed to trial. It recognised tikanga Māori’s role in the case, saying the trial court would need to grapple with Smith’s role as kaitiaki for whenua, wai and moana, and with tikanga concepts of loss that are neither physical nor economic.
On 18 August 2026, Parliament passed legislation barring climate-related tort claims, including Smith’s.
Ranson said she brought the case to the international stage both to keep attention on the law change and to share the experience with Indigenous communities. She alleged major emitters had lobbied the Government, specifically citing Smith’s case. RNZ reporting documented that Fonterra and Z Energy provided the Prime Minister’s Office with a briefing note on the case proposing a law change; Fonterra also sent the note to a senior adviser’s private email account. The Prime Minister’s Office said it had no record of the document or meetings.
Ranson said she also wanted to share the case with Indigenous peoples internationally, so communities could learn from one another’s legal journeys while grounding their own approaches in their histories, legal traditions and understanding of harm.
“We can learn how others have gathered evidence and supported witnesses,” she said. “We can learn from setbacks, including changes in law that close routes people have worked hard to open.”
Ranson linked the Government’s climate and environmental approach to the wider struggle over Te Tiriti, saying it had enabled further extraction and exploitation. “There is no climate justice without Te Tiriti justice,” she said.
The question of whose knowledge shapes climate law also runs through the Pacific youth-led campaign Akbar represented. Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change began with 27 law students at the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu. Reflecting on the climate realities facing their own islands, they concluded that an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice could clarify states’ legal obligations. The campaign was later taken up by the Vanuatu Government and the Pacific Islands Forum, before the UN General Assembly requested the opinion in 2023.
Akbar said the opinion drew on storytelling, experience and technical expertise to show the Court the harm already happening and what future generations could lose.
“This approach marked a decolonial shift in the way international law recognises climate harm,” Akbar explained.
“The issue is far-reaching as well; we have long seen the Pacific and coastal communities to be facing the brunt of the crisis - but the recent Himalayan disaster is a sobering wake-up call.”
Akbar said it was surprising that New Zealand supported the Pacific-led ICJ process while its Government was moving to block Smith’s case.
On 20 May 2026, New Zealand voted for a UN resolution affirming the ICJ opinion; eight days earlier, the Government had announced its plan to bar climate-related tort claims.
He described it as “an alarming regression in climate justice and the state of human rights in New Zealand.”
International pressure is also growing beyond the courts. A complaint lodged with the European Commission under the EU–New Zealand trade deal challenges the Government’s climate record.
“The recent European case filed against New Zealand for failing to uphold the Paris Agreement is an indicator that, even if domestic law fails, international pressure is growing,” he said.
“At the heart of Smith’s cases and the AO was a people-led movement that aims to preserve what the world has to offer for future generations,” Akbar said.
“What we can be confident in is that people are demanding better. The law is slowly, but surely, waking up to the needs of people.”
