New Zealand's shameful role as spoiler at the shameful COP21 talks

New Zealand’s Tim Groser promotes suicide pact

I didn't think it was going to happen but apparenty those pesky Pacific island states that are about to disappear under water have put a proposal on the table to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius rather than the 2.0 degrees favoured by the "business-as-usual" gang.

Tim Groser, who is negotiating the TPP for New Zealand and is attending COP21 as Climate Negotations Minister (and treating it in the same manner as trade negotiations) is not at all keen on the idea.

You've got to hand it to Tim (who is off, after this and his TPPA success to a sinecure as Ambassador in Washington) is a bit more straightforward than his counterparts who pretend to be doing something while the planet burns. He doesn't even pretend.

First listen to this bit of nonsense from Barack Obama:

New Zealand's declared position is to extract the greatest possible compromises so that New Zealand can do as little possible to reduce its greenhouse emissions (which it is doing already).

Tim, it appears, is all in favour of a world that is at least 2 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial average.

None of this "save the planet" nonsense for him.

According to Radio New Zealand journalist Chris Bramwell

"Mr.Groser does not seem particularly interested in supporting a 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit (as opposed to) a 2 degree limit"

Here's her report: 

So it's going to be a tough week head in Paris for Tim arguing his position.

If you want to hear from the horse's mouth: 

And here is the Radio New Zealand report on the talks.

You wouldn't think that buried someone where you can't find it that  the world's future depended on these talks - which of course it doesn't because which ever way you look at it COP21 is not going to come up with anything worthwhile.

Besides which, at 59 (at last count) positive feedbacks we're way over time for human extinction.

But, hey! Let's continue to extend and pretend and party on, at least until we're taken out by nuclear conflagration.

Tough week ahead at climate talks

Chris Bramwell in Paris - @chrisbramwell

RadioNZ,

7 December, 2015

Ministers meeting at the climate change talks in Paris tonight have their work cut out for them as they start the crucial final week of the conference.

While delegates have agreed a draft text, at 48 pages it is still too long and contains hundreds of square brackets indicating sections that have not been resolved or options still to be chosen.

Read the draft Framework Convention on Climate Change here

Photo: AFP

Four main areas are unresolved.

1 - How binding should the agreement be?

New Zealand has long proposed that the overarching deal should be binding, but countries should not be bound to the emissions reductions targets they have submitted.

The United States supports New Zealand's position, but the United Kingdom, the European Union and Pacific Island nations do not.

New Zealand's climate change Minister Tim Groser argues the US will not sign up to a deal that binds it to its targets, and that would mean a collapse of the talks.

2 - How hot - 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees?

In the lead-up to the talks, the focus had been on getting a deal that would limit the warming of the planet to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

But tough negotiating by small island states and members of the G77 group of developing nations has seen both 1.5 and 2 degrees left as options in the text. Australia is reportedly also in support of the 1.5 degree limit.

Small island states, including New Zealand's neighbours in the Pacific, are adamant the limit must be 1.5 degrees, arguing their future is at stake.

3 - Who pays who and how much?

The long standing and thorny issue of finance is likely to be the biggest sticking point to cutting the deal and it boils down to the cumbersome word: differentiation.

This refers to common but differentiated responsibility. In plain English, while it is agreed that the whole planet has to take action on climate change, developing and poorer nations should be helped by developed countries to adapt to the changing climate and be able to grow in a way that does not damage the climate.

For some countries (including New Zealand) this means helping developing countries' transition to a low carbon future, but for others it means not only help to adapt but also payment for loss and damage as a result of climate change that they argue they did not cause.

4 - When should the agreement be reviewed?

Added up, all the pledges submitted to the UN to reduce emissions would not keep global warming to below 2 degrees of warming. In fact the current estimate is that they result in the planet becoming 2.7 degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels.

Many countries, scientists and NGOs argue that a review of targets should be written in to the agreement, and there should be some kind of ratcheting up of the pledges.

New Zealand supports the plan to include a review, perhaps five years into the 2020-2030 commitment period, but says having a compulsory ratcheting up may be hard to get over the line at the talks.


It has been a week for doubtful honours for this country. Not only has John Key and his Trade Negotiation minister won us the "Fossil of the Day" award in Paris but New Zealand has been named as the fifth most ignorant developed country in the world. 

Now that Tony "Dumb Dumb" Abbott and Stephen Harper have both departed from the scene New Zealand can lead the field?

NZ wins first 'Fossil' award at Paris talks

Prime minister's promise of more fossil fuel subsidies nets us the dubious award.

"

NZ Herald,

1 December, 2015

New Zealand and Belgium have taken the first 'Fossil of the Day' award at the UN Climate Talks.

John Key's address to the UN Paris Climate Talks, along with our weak emissions targets has won New Zealand the Fossil of the Day Award, the first to be given at the talks.

Fossil of the Day is an award given by Climate Action Network International, a global coalition of environmental NGOs.

"New Zealand being awarded the Fossil of the Day award on the first day of the Paris Climate Talks is a damning indictment of New Zealand's climate policy of inaction," said New Zealand Youth Delegation spokesperson Zoe Lenzie-Smith from Paris.

"New funding announced earlier in Prime Minister John Key's speech suggests $70 million of potentially new climate change funding per year (with $200 million of aid to Pacific nations for climate related support over four years, and $20 million of new research to reduce methane emissions) compared to the $84.92 million spent on fossil subsidies in New Zealand in 2013."

"Even more galling than New Zealand's inaction is its hypocrisy. The Prime Minister alleged that New Zealand is a leader on fossil fuel subsidy abolition, where in fact New Zealand's fossil fuel production subsidies have increased seven-fold since Key's election in 2008."

The Climate Network was scathing of Key: "Prime Minister John Key showed a degree of hypocrisy by claiming, at a Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform event, that New Zealand is a leader on fossil fuel subsidy abolition - despite the country's fossil fuel production subsidies have increasing seven-fold since his election in 2008. His phoney grandstanding came just a week after claiming that New Zealand 'doesn't need to be and shouldn't be a leader in climate change'. Are you getting mixed signals too? Or is it just us?"

New Zealand was joined on the podium by Belgium, its environmental leadership being described as "as murky as a tall glass of weisse beer.

"It's four governments from four different parties are still bickering over how to implement the existing EU climate and energy package from 2009, ensuring they were too busy to even consider doing the work necessary to prepare for the Paris Climate Summit. Way to go Belgium...backwards," said the Climate Network.

It's not the first time New Zealand has taken line honours, having won two fossil awards in 2012 in Qatar.