Climate plan faces High Court challenge over reliance on pine forests
Monday, 16 March 2026
A major legal challenge to the Government’s climate policy begins in the High Court today, with environmental lawyers arguing the country’s emissions plan unlawfully relies on vast pine plantations instead of cutting pollution.
On Monday morning climate activists were on the steps of the High Court hearing which challenges Climate Minister Simon Watts on the legality of the government’s emissions reduction plan.
They had a literal laundry list of issues - laundry items emblazoned with a climate policy they say the government has scrapped.
“Instead of cutting pollution at the source, the government has scrapped over 30 climate policies and is now trying to prop up its climate plan with pine offsets,” 350 Aotearoa campaigner Adam Currie said.
“Their climate strategy is about as credible as trying to hold up the sky with a broomstick.”
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Among the 30 dirty laundry items were fast-tracked consenting, new coal mines and cheap public transport.
The case, brought by the Environmental Law Initiative and Lawyers for Climate Action NZ, targets decisions made by Climate Change Minister Simon Watts under the Climate Change Response Act 2002.
The groups argue the Government’s emissions reduction plans breach the law and leave New Zealand off track to meet its climate targets.
Under the legislation, governments must produce five-yearly emissions reduction plans designed to keep the country within legally binding carbon budgets and move toward net-zero emissions by 2050.
The legal challenge focuses on two decisions: amendments to the first emissions reduction plan and the approval of a second plan covering the late 2020s.
Lawyers for the groups say the changes weakened the original plan after what they describe as a “tick-box” consultation process, producing a revised policy that is “incoherent and internally contradictory”.
They also argue the Government approved the second plan despite evidence New Zealand may miss its 2026–2030 emissions budget and its 2030 methane target.
A central issue is the Government’s reliance on large-scale pine plantations to absorb carbon rather than reducing emissions at source.
According to the Climate Change Commission, the plan assumes about 800,000 hectares of additional exotic forest will be planted by 2070, roughly twice the size of Auckland.
Critics argue forests store carbon only temporarily and are vulnerable to fire, pests and storms.
The claimants are asking the High Court to declare the minister’s decisions unlawful and quash the second emissions reduction plan, forcing the Government to produce a new one.
Climate Action’s lawyer Jessica Palairet said Watts had treated forests absorbing carbon from the atmosphere as interchangeable with actually reducing emissions from their source, despite clear science showing they were not.
She said Watts also needed to consider whether New Zealand’s heavy reliance on tree planting was consistent with international law, which he did not.
ELI’s senior legal researcher Eliza Prestidge-Oldfield said the decisions benefitted major polluters, while per‑capita emissions remained among the highest in the world.
The approach was “setting New Zealand up to fail, with enormous costs being shunted on to future generations”.
The case comes as courts in countries including the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom have struck down government climate plans deemed too weak to meet legal obligations.
Launching the plan in December 2024, Watts said New Zealand needed to be “stronger in a changing climate”.
“We want our way of life to be protected and minimise the impacts of climate change to our country.
“We can have affordable and secure clean energy, an efficient competitive agriculture sector, and a booming economy while meeting our climate change commitments. This plan sets out how we can get there.”