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New Zealand denies breaching climate commitments to EU / Photo: © AFP/File
New Zealand denies breaching climate commitments to EU
New Zealand denied on Wednesday it had broken climate promises made in a free-trade deal with the European Union, after a green group lodged a complaint with Brussels.
Dutch environmental justice group Both ENDS said it filed its claim with the European Commission, accusing Wellington of reneging on the 2024 trade agreement.
"New Zealand signed a trade deal with the EU promising to uphold the Paris Agreement and not to weaken environmental protections to attract trade," the group said.
"Since then, it has reopened offshore oil and gas exploration, cut its methane target, and passed a law closing the courts to climate claims, even though its own officials advised against it," it said in a statement.
"We're asking one thing: that New Zealand keep the commitments it signed."
Both ENDS said its objection was the first climate complaint to be made under an EU trade deal, and would test whether such commitments had any value.
New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay rejected the claim his government had breached the EU free trade agreement, worth an estimated NZ$1.8 billion ($1.0 billion) a year to his country.
"New Zealand takes its international obligations seriously and always meets them. We are compliant with the EU free trade agreement," the minister said in a statement.
"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," said the minister, fresh from negotiating a lucrative free-trade deal with India that goes into force next month.
New Zealand's Climate Change Commission, an independent body established by statute in 2019, has said the country is at risk of missing its own emissions reduction targets as a result of the right-wing government's recent policy changes.
In a July report, it said government policies such as excluding agriculture from emissions pricing, changes to clean vehicle rules, reducing reporting requirements for businesses and planning a liquefied natural gas import facility would raise emissions beyond any savings made elsewhere.
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