MEDIA RELEASE, 19 September 2023

Protection from adverse effects of climate change has been affirmed as a right for all children under international law by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. 

Launched yesterday in Geneva, the Committee’s General Comment No. 26 (2023) on Children’s Rights and the Environment With a Special Focus on Climate Change places new legal obligations on States, like New Zealand, which have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

“As a contributor to the UN Committee which issued this statement, OraTaiao welcomes its wide-ranging verdict and we urge the New Zealand Government to now honour its obligations to act for our children”, says OraTaiao Co-convenor Summer Wright. 

MEDIA RELEASE, 3 July 2023

OraTaiao, the New Zealand Climate and Health Council, is joining the call for Waka Kotahi to liberate the lane following the release of a report showing the viability of reallocating one lane of traffic on the harbour bridge for walking and cycling.

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. 

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.

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.

MEDIA RELEASE, 27 October 2022

Health is at the mercy of a fossil fuel addiction. That’s the stark message from the seventh annual report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, launched in London today by the world's highest-impact general medical journal. 

MEDIA RELEASE, 7 April 2022

Today is World Health Day and eleven organisations representing doctors, nurses and other health professionals have written to Health Minister Andrew Little asking that, as part of the Government’s health reforms, our healthcare system is made climate ready and climate friendly.