[2] The Coalition was formed in April 2006 by a group including the botanist Professor David Bellamy who held the position that "climate science is not settled, that the world is not on the brink of a man-made global warming catastrophe".
[3] In July 2006, Bryan Leyland, who claimed to be the acting chairman of the Coalition, issued a media release recommending the New Zealand government institute a Royal Commission on climate change claiming the public were "being given incomplete, inaccurate and biased information about the effects of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere" when "global warming caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases ... cannot be substantiated".
[5] In April 2007, another member of the Coalition, Vincent R. Gray, described the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report as "dangerous unscientific nonsense" and "lacking in scientific rigour".
[11] In 2007, the Heartland Institute, which rejects mainstream scientific information about man-made climate change,[12] granted the Coalition US$25,000 (NZ$32,000) sending the money to NZCSC member Owen McShane.
[13] In making his decision in favour of NIWA, Justice Venning noted that at least two of the people representing the Coalition at court did not have scientific qualifications in the field of climate science.