MEDIA RELEASE, 17 May 2023

Ahead of UN climate change negotiations in Dubai at the end of the year, a report from the Global Climate and Health Alliance has delivered a damning assessment of New Zealand’s commitment to a healthy, climate safe future. 

Ahead of the COP28 international climate change negotiations which are due to be held in Dubai at the end of the year, OraTaiao has responded to a consultation request from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Manatū Aorere (MFAT).

OraTaiao believes that New Zealand's approach to COP28 must recognise it as a tool for global cooperation to secure the humanly adaptable limit of 1.5°C of global warming, not a forum for competitive trade negotiations. And before using international platforms to promote ourselves as climate leaders – when there is not credible substance to this claim across all sectors and gases – we must first be the change we want to see globally. 

OraTaiao has therefore provided MFAT with comprehensive advice. Making human health a key focus of urgent climate action can guide their approach on a wide range of questions in Dubai – including, but not limited to: 

MEDIA RELEASE, 8 May 2023

Three of NZ’s key climate & health advocacy groups – 350 Aotearoa, OraTaiao: NZ Climate and Health Council, and Generation Zero – have come out strongly against a full or partial sale of Auckland Council’s airport shares.

Clinical psychologist Lucy McLean and journalist Shanti Mathias both attended the youth-led Global Climate Strike on 3 March 2023. They spoke with an Auckland high schooler, a spokesperson for Fridays for Future, a university student and also with counsellor and OraTaiao Executive Board member Silvia Purdie. The resulting article explains how action to mitigate the climate crisis can also help improve mental health. Read it here. 

OraTaiao thanks Te Manatū Waka Ministry of Transport for the opportunity to comment on the Indicative Strategic Priorities for the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport in 2024. Our brief feedback, prepared by OraTaiao Co-Convenor Dr Dermot Coffey, makes three recommendations to give GPS 2024 a stronger focus on a more rapid mode-shift to active transport and non-polluting forms of transport. 

Click on the heading to see our feedback below. 

OraTaiao strongly endorses a statement in the Future of Local Government draft report, He mata whāriki, he matawhānui. “Fundamentally, we consider at the core of a future for local government is a stronger focus on wellbeing.”

Dr Dermot Coffey letter. Discusses benefits of Christchurch cycleways and opposition from some city councillors. The Press, 1 March 2023.

Read here.

MEDIA RELEASE, 27 February 2023

OraTaiao calls on all of Aotearoa to take a stand for human health at this Friday’s Climate Strikes to be held in ten cities and towns around our country. 

“As health workers, we know that our changing climate is both the biggest threat to human health and well-being,” says Dr Dermot Coffey, OraTaiao co-convenor, “and the biggest chance to build a fairer, healthier Tiriti-founded future together.”

“The tragic losses from cyclones across Te Ika a Māui call for compassion, clean-ups, resilience-building – and most of all, fast cuts to our climate-destabilising emissions.”

“This is why we have issued medical certificates for everyone of every age and everywhere in Aotearoa, to join this Friday’s Global Climate Strike”, says Dr Coffey. 

MEDIA RELEASE, 21 February 2023

The New Zealand government has received a clear message from the United Nations about the need to enable children and young people, in particular Māori and Pasifika children and children living in low-income settings, to meaningfully participate in climate change planning and decision-making.

The recommendation came in the “Concluding observations on the sixth periodic report of New Zealand”, recently released by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Two pieces of legislation to repeal and replace the ageing Resource Management Act 1991 are now before Parliament’s Environment Committee. Unfortunately, the Natural and Built Environments and Spatial Planning Bills continue a perspective which sees nature as separate from humans and land, water, air and biodiversity as “resources” to be exploited. They fail to effect Te Tiriti o Waitangi and are unclear about how they support climate action. 

OraTaiao supports genuinely embedding an integrated Māori view of the environment as a key policy intent of the bills, not just in order to uphold te Tiriti obligations, but because a genuine Te Oranga o te Taiao approach reflects the core concept that the health of ecosystems is integral to the health and wellbeing of people and communities. 

Prepared by representative members of OraTaiao, including Co-Convenors Summer Wright and Dr Dermot Coffey, our submission is focused on optimising the benefits to human and planetary wellbeing by protecting and restoring the natural environment, by effecting Te Tiriti o Waitangi and grounding reforms in goals for intergenerational and equitable health outcomes. Read our full submission here. 

Despite an increasing awareness of the worsening health impacts of climate change, not enough is being done both domestically and globally, write Dermot Coffey and Summer Wright in the final issue of New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa for 2022. We are grateful for permission to now republish their op-ed here. 

Our second webinar: a chance for the OraTaiao exec to share with the membership about who they are and what motivates them to be involved with OraTaiao. 

OraTaiao has joined the Free Fares Coalition – the Aotearoa Collective for Public Transport Equity. In support of their campaign to make public transport free for all under-25s, tertiary students, Community Services Card holders, and Total Mobility Card holders and their support people, OraTaiao spokesperson and Occupational Therapist Romelli Rodriguez-Jolly was able to give a one minute oral submission to Parliament's Petitions Committee. Click on the title of this article for a transcript of the submission.