New Zealand blocks climate lawsuits against firms

New Zealand's parliament has passed legislation blocking civil lawsuits that seek to hold companies liable for climate change harm.

The coalition government's legal amendment cleared its final parliamentary hurdle on Tuesday night by 67 votes to 53. The government said the law aims to stop civil litigation from overriding its climate policy and undermining business confidence.

The measure was introduced after Indigenous Maori climate activist Michael Smith filed a lawsuit against six major New Zealand companies over their contribution to environmental harm linked to climate change. The companies named in the case included dairy farming company Fonterra. The law effectively ended Smith's legal action.

Smith told national broadcaster RNZ that the law represented a “dark day for democracy” and warned that no legal claim would be secure if parliament could cancel a live court case when it became politically inconvenient.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the legislation would give businesses certainty over their climate obligations. He said the courts were not the right place to resolve claims of climate harm, arguing that the issue involved complex environmental, economic and social factors and should be managed by the government at a national level.

Green Party lawmaker Steve Abel criticised the change in parliament, saying it was “intentionally against the public interest”.

The vote followed a warning last month from the Climate Change Commission that government policies could lead New Zealand to miss its emissions reduction targets. The commission said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's government had ignored its emissions-cutting advice in 2025 and that current policy settings were not delivering progress fast enough.