Climate Activists Demand Government Accountability In Landmark EU Trade Complaint

Lillian
Hanly Political Reporter

Climate activists are
putting their weight behind a claim
New Zealand has broken its climate change promises in
the free trade agreement with the EU.

They say the
complaint isn’t an attack on New Zealand’s exporters,
workers, or communities, but a call for the government to
“explain its conduct and to take corrective
action.”

It comes as the Trade
Minister and the Greens’ trade barbs over the
issue.

A Dutch organisation lodged the first complaint
of its kind through the European Commission’s complaints
mechanism known as the Single Entry Point.

It claims
New Zealand had failed to uphold its legal commitments in
the EU-NZ FTA not to weaken environmental protections in
order to “encourage trade or investment,” and to effectively
implement the Paris Agreement.

The most extreme
consequences could be losing access to the lucrative
European market, but the group is seeking compliance rather
than the suspension of trade benefits.

New Zealand
organisations cannot themselves file a complaint, but a
number of groups and individuals have added their support as
co-sponsors, including Greenpeace, Ngāti Pukenga, Ora
Taiao, Environmental Law Initiative, Mike Smith and
Professor Jane Kelsey.

Climate campaigner and
co-sponsor Mike Smith told RNZ the complaint was not an
attack on exporters, workers, or communities.

“It’s
more a call for the government to explain its conduct and to
take corrective action.

“As Māori, we’ve got a sacred
duty to protect the natural world for future generations.
And when the domestic avenues for accountability are closed,
we’ll seek that accountability wherever we
can.”

Smith’s case against major emitters was impacted
by a law change preventing companies from being sued over
damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

He said the
government can’t enjoy the benefits of the FTA while
treating the commitments it made under that agreement as
“optional.”

Smith said it was “embarrassing” for New
Zealand to be “first cab off the rank” in terms of these
complaints, given it negotiated the deal.

Eliza
Prestidge-Oldfield is a senior legal researcher at the
Environmental Law Initiative, an organisation that is
co-sponsoring the complaint.

She said the government
hadn’t recognised there’s a strong link between “domestic
climate action and international trade policy.”

“So
this is the first time there’s been this sort of situation
arise where a government has gone so far backwards on
climate, and there is this path to
accountability.”

She said she’d definitely rather New
Zealand not be the test case, “it’s a bit
awkward.”

She told RNZ “non-regression” meant “you
can’t go backwards on climate to try and encourage trade and
investment.”

The complaint recognised the “cumulative
impact” of a whole lot of things across the climate change
and environmental protection space over the last three
years, she said.

Taken together, they show the
government trying to facilitate more extractive industry
investment in those sorts of industries, “at the expense of
upholding those international climate change
commitments.”

Executive director of Greenpeace – also
a co-sponsor – Dr Russell Norman said it was a big deal for
New Zealand to come under fire for this.

He said the
agreement was significant because it potentially had teeth
in it.

“If New Zealand were found to be in breach of
the environmental chapter, then potentially some of those
trade preferences could be rolled back.

“That’s meant
to be the discipline that ensures that the signatures to the
agreement actually live up to their promises.”

He
said it was important for everyone on the planet there was
strong climate policy and environmental protections and that
“we don’t have trade resulting in a race to the bottom on
environmental standards.”

Norman also noted the
government had been warned, but “carried on”, saying finally
the “chickens have come home to roost.”

Political
reaction

The trade minister told RNZ he was deeply
disappointed to see New Zealand organisations and the Green
Party joining with foreign actors to attack New
Zealand.

“This harms our exporters and the jobs they
provide.”

He said New Zealand took its international
obligations seriously and “always meets them,” maintaining
the country was compliant with the FTA.

“This is the
second time in a number of months that overseas groups and
the Green Party have joined together to attack New Zealand
and our exporters,” he said, referencing a letter from the
Greens raising their concerns in June.

“The first was
a complaint to the European Commission, which was rejected.
It shows why they are not fit to be in government, let alone
to hold the Treasury benches.

“We have always been
clear that we are committed to meeting our environment and
climate obligations.

“However, it is for the New
Zealand Parliament and our government to decide how we do
this.

“It is not for overseas countries, organisations
or lobby groups to tell New Zealand how to meet its
obligations.”

Green Party Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick
has fired back, saying it should be a “wakeup call to the
minister”.

She said McClay “knows that his government
has undermined climate action and our international
commitments.”

“That comes with
consequences.”

She said the complaint was laid by a
European organisation and the Green Party was not
involved.

“Two of the three current coalition parties
are explicitly campaigning to pull out of the Paris
Agreement, and National is behaving as if signing up to it
doesn’t mean doing anything.

“Their lack of
seriousness on climate is obvious to everyone.

“This
should be a wakeup call to the minister to do his job,
instead of blaming everyone else for the consequences of his
actions.”

But New Zealand First deputy leader Shane
Jones told RNZ the government had done nothing that “worsens
the climate plight of the planet”.

He said the
coalition had pushed for development, jobs, investment and
growth for the benefit of New Zealanders.

“These green
eco warriors, collaborating with a malicious group in Europe
are actually sabotaging,” Jones said.

“I’m just sick
to death of this cultism, this catastrophisation of climate
to the point we’ve now got people acting in a traitorous
way, deliberately sabotaging the New Zealand
economy.

“It’s not only baffling, it’s just it’s
unbelievable and it’s stupidity.”

He called those
sponsoring the complaint “deluded, unaccountable saboteurs”,
who were wilfully undermining and doing something they have
“absolutely no mandate for”.

Jones said the government
had a mandate, and the extent to which it embraced
climate-related policies was a political matter that belongs
in the sovereignty of New Zealand, “not some distant
windowless room in the EU, not some unaccountable group
operating at night time in Amsterdam”.

“They have
absolutely no authority, and they are worsening our economic
prospects.

“The complaint is an ideological daisy
chain put together by deluded minds who do not understand
economics and who are undermining our sovereign status as an
independent
nation.”

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