Govt lawyers say case not ‘practical’

Government lawyers have questioned the High Court’s ability to rule on climate change emission targets, in a case brought by a law student.

Sarah Thomson, of Waikato University, brought the lawsuit against Environment Minister Paula Bennett over allegedly inadequate climate change action.

But Government lawyer Peter Gunn, in the High Court at Wellington yesterday, questioned whether a judicial review was practical given the complex economic, social, and political factors that contributed to emissions targets.

He said understanding the scientific background to the targets might also be a hurdle beyond the scope of the court.

Gunn described many of the requirements under the Paris Agreement as ‘‘high-flown, abstract consideration’’ that were difficult to put into any legal construct.

Speaking for Thomson on Monday, lawyer Davey Salmon said a judicial review was the public’s only chance to scrutinise emission targets, with no upper house of Parliament, or constitution, to fall back on.

Gunn worked to debunk some of the accusations laid down by Salmon on Monday. These included criticism of over-reliance on not-yet-invented technologies in order to achieve targets.

Gunn said such technologies were not the ‘‘Star Wars’’ stuff that Thomson’s team had made them out to be, and pointed to an affidavit from former environment minister Tim Groser, which described methane vaccines currently under development.

‘‘They may reduce the emissions from the country’s cattle, your honour. Those are not Star Wars technologies,’’ Gunn said.

When asked for other examples of emerging technologies by Justice Jillian Mallon, Gunn pointed to research into the breeding of low-emission cows, and development of new feeds, none of which were commercially available as yet.

Salmon accused the Government on Monday of being unwilling to touch the ‘‘sacred cow’’ of dairying, despite its high emissions of methane.

Dairy contributed about 48 per cent of New Zealand’s emissions, but Gunn defended New Zealand’s agricultural sector. He argued that, if New Zealand were to move away from dairy, the demand would remain, incentivising less efficient producers in other countries to fill the gap. ‘‘That doesn’t help the global outcome we are all striving for.’’ New Zealand’s reliance on buying carbon credits from abroad to achieve up to 80 per cent of its emission reduction goals was also defended. Reading from the submission of David Frame, the Government’s science expert in the case, Gunn said relying purely on domestic reductions was inefficient, when cheaper reductions could be had elsewhere.

‘‘The climate doesn’t care about the location of mitigation,’’ Gunn said.

Gunn was not able to provide a list countries from which New Zealand bought carbon credits, but agreed with the judge’s summation that traders were not necessarily negative emitters, but were instead countries projected to have emissions that contributed to less than a two-degree temperature increase.

The hearing continues today.