News / 29 September 2026

Summary - Both ENDS complaint under the EU-New Zealand trade agreement

On 29 September 2026, Both ENDS lodged the first complaint on climate grounds with the European Commission's Single Entry Point. It asks the Commission to examine whether Aotearoa New Zealand has broken two promises both sides made in the EU-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement: not to weaken or set aside environmental laws in order to encourage trade or investment, and to effectively implement the Paris Agreement.

The complaint has been lodged with the Commission, which is examining it against its published criteria. This page sets out what the complaint contains. Nothing in it rests on confidential material: its evidence comes from the New Zealand Government's own records, including Cabinet papers, Regulatory Impact Statements and Treasury analysis, and from the Climate Change Commission, New Zealand's independent statutory adviser. The key sources are listed at the bottom of this page.

Two promises

The EU-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement entered into force on 1 May 2024. Its chapter on trade and sustainable development contains commitments both sides accepted.

Non-regression (Article 19.2(4) and (5)). Neither side may weaken the protection provided by its environmental laws in order to encourage trade or investment. Nor may it waive or otherwise derogate from those laws for that purpose.

The Paris Agreement promise (Article 19.6). Each side must effectively implement the Paris Agreement, and must refrain from any action or omission that materially defeats its object and purpose. Where a panel finds that the second of these tests has been breached, the agreement allows the suspension of trade benefits.

What the complaint documents

Since the agreement entered into force, the New Zealand Government has taken a connected series of decisions. The complaint sets them out in order.

1. A climate target with no plan to meet it. New Zealand's own emissions reduction plan projects a shortfall of 84 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent against its first Paris target (2021 to 2030). The Treasury estimates the potential fiscal cost of closing that gap through offshore mitigation at NZ$4.4 to 5.0 billion. No funded plan to close it exists. In June 2026 the Prime Minister said: "we ain't sending billions of dollars offshore".

2. A next target that cannot be compared with the last. New Zealand's 2035 target of 51 to 55 per cent sits well below what its own Climate Change Commission advised was feasible through domestic reductions alone (up to 69 per cent), and below the at least 70 per cent that Ministry for the Environment analysis said would better reflect the expected contribution of a developed country.

The Government also changed how the target is counted, from a multi-year budget to a single year, and has not published a like-for-like comparison, although its officials advised that explaining the change would be important for transparency. The complaint cites analysis showing that, on the previous multi-year accounting method, the 51 per cent headline corresponds to a reduction of about 41 per cent.

3. A weaker methane target. New Zealand lowered its 2050 methane target range from 24 to 47 per cent to 14 to 24 per cent. The change was passed under urgency in December 2025, without a select committee stage or public submissions, and against the Climate Change Commission's advice to strengthen the target.

The Government's own methane review found that the bottom of the new range matches current global action, not a 1.5°C pathway. Officials recommended a single 24 per cent target; ministers chose the range. Agriculture produces about half of New Zealand's gross emissions and about 90 per cent of its biogenic methane. Using the Commission's own figures, the complaint calculates that lowering the bottom of the range from 24 to 14 per cent would need a further one-off cut of roughly 360 to 440 million tonnes of CO2 in other gases to hold warming constant, about five years of New Zealand's gross emissions.

4. Agricultural emissions taken out of carbon pricing. The Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme Agricultural Obligations) Amendment Act 2024 removed the legal backstop that would have brought farm emissions into pricing. The Government's own impact statement warned that this increases the risk of missing domestic targets and international commitments. In October 2025 the Government confirmed it would no longer price agricultural emissions by 2030, citing export earnings and jobs.

5. The carbon market cut loose from Paris. In December 2025, in the same urgent law and without public consultation, New Zealand removed the legal requirement that its Emissions Trading Scheme settings accord with its Paris target.

The Ministry for the Environment described that requirement as a formal alignment mechanism between the scheme and New Zealand's international commitment. Its impact statement recorded that keeping the requirement might have required more of the Paris target to be met through domestic cuts. The Climate Change Commission has since reported that market participants identified the announcement of the change as "a key driver of the recent low and volatile prices" in the scheme.

6. Offshore oil and gas exploration reopened. In August 2025, two weeks after the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion on climate change, New Zealand reversed its 2018 ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration. The Cabinet paper presented the reversal as a way to reinvigorate investment in petroleum exploration and signal that New Zealand was "open for business". Its foreign ministry advised that the reversal could create inconsistency with obligations in several of New Zealand's trade agreements, including this one, not to reduce environmental protection to encourage trade or investment. Officials expected it to increase emissions.

Of the 5,524 submissions to Parliament's select committee on the Bill, 94.5 per cent opposed it. The first new offshore permit has since been granted, to an Australian company.

7. Public money for gas. The Government created a NZ$200 million Gas Security Fund to co-invest in new and existing gas fields and storage, and in September 2026 approved its first allocation: up to NZ$23.5 million in time-limited loans, on terms the Government has declined to release. It has also run a tender for an LNG import facility.

In June 2026 it dropped a proposed levy on power companies to pay for the facility, and on 23 September 2026 it deferred a decision until after the general election. The complaint asks the Commission to scrutinise the Gas Security Fund against New Zealand's commitment in the agreement to work towards reforming and progressively reducing fossil-fuel subsidies, and to keep the LNG plans under review.

8. The law that closed the courts to climate claims. The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Act 2026, introduced under urgency with a shortened select committee process and in force since 25 August 2026, bars tort liability for harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions, for any person whose activities contribute to them. It applies retrospectively to proceedings not finally determined when it came into force (the Ministry of Justice's own impact statement says the bar "will be applied retrospectively"), names Smith v Fonterra, brought by Mike Smith (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu), a case the Supreme Court allowed to proceed to trial in 2024, and excludes compensation.

The Ministry of Justice's preferred option was not to legislate: it had "not identified any evidence that the ongoing court proceedings have had a measurable impact on business confidence" and concluded that the benefits of a retrospective bar would likely not outweigh its costs. The Government's stated objective was nonetheless legal clarity and confidence for businesses and potential investors. The impact statement suggested the bar could attract international investment, while conceding that officials had found no evidence it would.

The Bill followed direct lobbying by defendants in the case: Fonterra and Z Energy gave the Prime Minister's Chief Policy Advisor a briefing note arguing for legislative intervention, which the Chief Ombudsman found the Prime Minister's Office had unreasonably failed to release under the Official Information Act. Ninety-three per cent of the 623 written submissions to the Justice Select Committee opposed the Bill.

The legal case

Non-regression. The reversal of the offshore exploration ban and the law that closed the courts to climate claims both reduce environmental protection that was in place when the agreement was signed and entered into force. The Government's own records connect both to attracting or protecting investment.

The complaint also argues that the tort bar, by removing a whole category of harm from the reach of the law, is a derogation from environmental law to encourage investment, which the agreement separately prohibits. It treats the removal of agricultural pricing and the weaker methane target, both justified by reference to export earnings, as regression under the same provision.

The Paris Agreement promise. Taken together, these decisions do not amount to effective implementation of the Paris Agreement. Effective implementation requires measures capable of delivering New Zealand's targets, including regulation of the private actors behind major sources of emissions; New Zealand has moved in the opposite direction, deregulating farm emissions, licensing new petroleum exploration and shielding emitters from liability.

The Climate Change Commission's July 2026 monitoring report finds that the second emissions budget is at significant risk, that current plans are insufficient for the third, and that the 2030 methane target is unlikely to be met. The complaint argues that this is not a shortfall but a deliberate weakening of the instruments that were meant to close it, and that the combined pattern materially defeats the Paris Agreement's object and purpose.

The 2025 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, which recognises that granting fossil-fuel licences and subsidies may engage state responsibility, provides relevant context. On 20 May 2026, nine days after announcing that it would legislate to bar climate tort claims, New Zealand voted at the United Nations General Assembly for the resolution welcoming that opinion, while recording reservations on the legal issues.

What we ask the Commission to do

Examine the complaint under the Single Entry Point procedure and place the measures before the Committee on Trade and Sustainable Development, inviting written observations from the EU and New Zealand Domestic Advisory Groups and consulting affected Māori organisations.
Raise the matter with New Zealand at the earliest opportunity and ask it to refrain from irreversible steps while the complaint is examined, such as granting further offshore petroleum permits, making further allocations from the Gas Security Fund or concluding contracts for LNG import infrastructure.
If the matter is not resolved, request formal consultations with New Zealand.
If consultations do not resolve the matter, initiate panel proceedings.

Why a European organisation

Both ENDS files this complaint in its own name, as an EU-based organisation. The Single Entry Point exists so that European civil society can ask the Commission to enforce the sustainability commitments in EU trade agreements. The complaint asks nothing of New Zealand's democracy beyond what New Zealand signed up to. It asks the EU to apply its own rules: holding New Zealand to its word, and holding the EU to enforcing its own signature.

Dialogue alone has not worked. In April 2026, parliamentarians from Europe and New Zealand asked Trade Commissioner Šefčovič to assess the weakened methane target against the agreement. His reply in June pointed to bilateral cooperation and to an October 2025 joint statement in which both sides reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement, issued in the same month that New Zealand announced the weaker methane target and abandoned agricultural emissions pricing. Both have since been maintained, and the complainant has now turned to the Single Entry Point.

What happens next

The Commission is examining the complaint against its published criteria. It does not publish complaints, so Both ENDS will post a short update on this page at each stage.

The complaint is accompanied by sponsor statements from organisations and individuals in Aotearoa New Zealand: the Environmental Law Initiative, Greenpeace Aotearoa, Ngāti Pūkenga Iwi ki Tauranga Trust, OraTaiao: New Zealand Climate and Health Council, Mike Smith and Professor Emeritus Jane Kelsey. Each statement sets out, in its author's own words, how they contested these measures through New Zealand's own democratic and legal processes and why they sponsor the complaint. In Europe, La Via Campesina Europe supports the complaint.