Student takes Govt to court
A student’s bid to sue the Government over its climate change position may be the public’s only chance to scrutinise current emissions targets, her lawyers say.
Waikato University student Sarah Thomson said outside the High Court at Wellington yesterday: ‘‘I feel a lot of people have their hopes on this, because a lot of people want to see change.’’
In court, lawyer Davey Salmon outlined some of the consequences if global warming was not brought under control, including massive population displacement, food shortages, water shortages and coral reef collapse. ’’These are things that paint a very, very grim picture for geo-stability.’’
Without an upper house of Parliament or constitution to fall back on, the case constituted the best chance of bringing New Zealand’s emission target into line with the seriousness of climate change, he said.
Salmon accused the Government of tailoring goals to keep temperature increases below 2° Celsius. He said the 2° figure was intended as a tipping point by the Paris Climate Agreement, not a target. ‘‘Two degrees wasn’t the target, that was the point where it went from frightening to very frightening.’’
Salmon said part of the Government’s responsibility was to take into consideration the most up-todate information but it had made a ‘‘blanket decision not to reevaluate the 2050 target’’.
Justice Jillian Mallon was presented with 10,000 pages of scientific evidence, as well as affidavits from American climatologist James Hansen, and one of New Zealand’s leading climate change experts, Professor James Renwick.
‘‘I’m inviting your honour not to put this in the too-hard basket,’’ Salmon said.
New Zealand was relying on its relatively small size to avoid taking comprehensive action. ’’When the ship is sinking and there are a number of buckets, it doesn’t matter how big they are, everyone bails,’’ he said.
Salmon said he was not in court as a lobbyist or a political proponent and that, when it came to the science, both sides were in agreement. The Government’s current emissions targets were based on ‘‘logical fallacies’’, he said, which included leveraging reductions on the invention of future technologies that could scoop carbon dioxide out of the air and store it. Salmon branded this a ‘‘Star Trek’’ solution, and likened it to continuing to smoke, in the hope that someone would invent a cure for cancer.
The Government’s current target is an 11 per cent reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2030.
New Zealand’s reliance on carbon credits, which governments can buy to offset emission outputs, was also criticised. Salmon said the Government’s unwillingness to touch the ‘‘sacred cow’’ of dairy farming had resulted in up to fourfifths of emission reductions being reliant on credits, probably bought from overseas.