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Energy Minister Megan Woods was sued by a student group for deciding to issue fossil fuel permits.
A group of students has taken Energy Minister Megan Woods to court for letting oil and gas companies look for new fossil fuels.
The permits were issued after a global expert body, the International Energy Agency, said global oil and gas exploration should end immediately if countries are to successfully reach net-zero by 2050 and keep planetary temperatures to 1.5C, which would limit severe heat waves and storms.
In 2018, the Government banned offshore oil and gas exploration, but kept issuing onshore permits. Last year, two fossil fuel companies received permits to prospect for oil and gas in Taranaki.
During the first day of the hearing in the High Court, Students for Climate Solutions claimed the minister made a mistake in law by granting them.
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The Government will present its defence from Tuesday.
Previously when asked about the permits, Woods told Stuff her actions fulfilled a promise made when offshore exploration was banned. The Government committed to undertake three more rounds of permits for onshore oil and gas prospecting.
Under the Treaty of Waitangi and the Crown Minerals Act, Minister Woods has a responsibility to consult Māori as part of the process to issue oil and gas permits.
There are two major steps in the process, starting with a decision to issue permits and the release of a prospective map of Taranaki, divided into blocks. Once this map is finalised, interested parties can submit bids to be allowed to look for fossil fuels – and the minister can consider companies’ proposals and track records.
Iwi advice on places of cultural and environmental significance have meant some areas have been deemed off limits.
Acting on behalf of the students, lawyer Michard Heard said the minister should also consider iwi feedback on the overarching decision to grant permits.
During the latest round of prospecting consultation, Ngāruahine expressed its concern about the environmental and climate impacts of continuing to extract fossil fuels, Heard said.
Mere Brooks of Ngāruahine provided written evidence to the court on the iwi’s submission to Minister Woods. The iwi said that, by issuing the permits, the Government was acting against its commitments to move to a low-emissions economy.
But government officials dismissed this criticism as beyond the scope of the consultation. Minister Megan Woods accepted her officials’ advice.
In doing so, the minister erred in law, Heard argued. The Crown Minerals Act requires her to “have regard to the principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Justice Francis Cooke noted that the plantiffs and witnesses were not representing an iwi. He asked if he could rule that iwi rights were being breached without hearing from an iwi representative.
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In 2020, a part of New Zealand saw 61 days of drought in a row. For many, it was devastating.
Later in the hearing, Heard argued that Minister Woods should have taken several important documents into consideration before granting the permits – including the Net Zero By 2050 report by the International Energy Agency (or IEA) and the final advice of the Climate Change Commission.
The IEA’s report said the world had already discovered enough fossil fuels to make it through to net-zero by 2050. To meet that goal, “no new oil and gas fields [would be] approved for development” past 2021, the report noted.
This was also true for New Zealand, Heard argued. An independent consultant said, between current fields and discovered but untapped reserves, the country had enough fossil gas to last until at least 2035.
Before the permits were issued, the Climate Change Commission had also published its final advice. The independent advisory body did not give specific recommendations on the granting of fossil fuel exploration permits. But it told the Government “to get on a low-emissions path Aotearoa needs to avoid locking in new fossil gas assets”.
Six months before granting the permits, the Government declared a climate emergency.
In advice to Minister Woods, officials argued that New Zealand had set a domestic target of net-zero by 2050 – but continued fossil fuel extraction wasn’t incompatible because the goal of net-zero implied some emissions would still be generated. In addition, the fuels could be exported, officials noted.
Heard argued the officials only gave cursory consideration of the climate emergency declaration. Rather than grappling with the effects of the permits, the work “misunderstood the goal”, he said.
Crown Law, acting for Minister Woods, is expected to present the defence on Tuesday afternoon. The hearing will continue until Wednesday.
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