NZ coalition parties clash over Paris Agreement

New Zealand’s right-wing coalition parties will split on climate and campaign with different positions at the next election, with the minor parties growing cold on the Paris Agreement. While Prime Minister Chris Luxon’s National party remains keen to stay in the landmark climate pact, the free-market ACT and populist New Zealand First parties are increasingly opposed. Fresh from a trip to meet with US President Donald Trump’s administration, NZ First leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters launched an attack on the climate pact on his return. The 79-year-old said major powers had “no intention of honouring” their targets set under the pact, and it would be folly for New Zealand to follow its commitments. “Our sacrifice will make no difference,” he said. “Just under 60 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions come from four countries - China, United States, Russia, and India - and New Zealand’s emissions amount to only around 0.17 per cent. “Why are we making a rod for our own backs, punishing our farmers and our taxpayers and our economy, when China or the US could sneeze and produce more CO2 overnight than we do in a year?” In an interview with Radio NZ, Mr Peters said membership of the world’s most important emissions-reducing deal was “just catastrophic” and “virtue signalling” with an “enormous cost to New Zealand”. “I’m asking for a proper re-examination,” he said. Mr Peters’ public airing of climate grievances - which came at a party summit in Christchurch on Sunday - is another reminder of his Jekyll-and-Hyde political character. He is New Zealand’s highly respected foreign minister and a firebrand populist with views that can veer into sensationalist and conspiratorial. Mr Peters is also happy to throw his weight around, reminding Mr Luxon with a quip earlier in March that “I made him prime minister”. Addressing Mr Peters’ campaigning on Monday, Mr Luxon said his National party won support from ACT and NZ First to stay in the pact during government-forming negotiations in 2023. “That was a decision made by the coalition government, all parties,” he said, before foreshadowing the climate biff that awaits on the campaign trail. “As to what party positions may be going into a 2026 election, that’s for (each) party’s decisions.” Mr Luxon said his National party had resolved to stay inside the tent “because it’s in our national interest to do so”. “Farmers that I talk to up and down this country tell me very clearly that if we’re not in Paris, what happens is large multinationals and also competitor countries kick New Zealand products off shelves,” he said. Mr Luxon’s government has dismantled much of Jacinda Ardern’s climate agenda, including energy and adaptation projects worth billions, while retaining the independent climate agency tasked with supporting emission reductions. It has also downscaled NZ’s emissions ambitions. In January, climate change minister Simon Watts revealed a 2035 target of just one per cent below a previous pledge to cut emissions by 50 per cent by 2030. ACT party agriculture spokesman Mark Cameron, also a dairy farmer, used a social media video in February to suggest ditching those pledges, saying international commitments were “hamstringing our economy”. “We’re pulling out a lot of this climate wokery (and) now the real question is, should we also pull out of Paris?” he said. “I’d argue and my team would certainly argue perhaps we should pull out of that organisation.”