RNZ exclusive - The head of the international organisation tasked with cutting dangerous climate gases says New Zealand must follow through on its promise to halve emissions - and look at whether this could be strengthened.
COP26 President and UK Conservative Party MP Alok Sharma Photo: AFP
COP26 President and UK Conservative Party MP Alok Sharma is in Aotearoa after attending the Pacific Islands Forum and visiting Fiji and Australia.
Today he met with the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and yesterday with the climate, agriculture, and environment ministers, and other politicians as well as the Climate Change Commission.
Sharma spoke exclusively to RNZ Climate Reporter Hamish Cardwell.
The transcript below is edited for length and brevity, watch the full version here:
Will New Zealand's pledge to halve emissions by 2030 would need to be increased?
"Every country has signed up to is to look at their [pledges] and for them to be consistent with the Paris temperature goals.
"The two big sectors in terms of emissions in New Zealand are agriculture and transport.
"And based on the discussion I've had the government is going to be working on and thinking about how you accelerate the emissions reductions in those big, big sectors.
"This is a consistent message that I'm delivering to every country. So far, we've had a 16 countries come forward with the revised emissions reduction targets for 2030. I know there are some big G20 countries as well, which will come forward by the end of this year, but everyone needs to play their part."
New Zealand has a fairly a unique emissions profile, agriculture is really quite high up there. In your conversations [with leaders], were you satisfied that New Zealand is doing enough to bring agricultural emissions down?
"Well, there is a plan that New Zealand has and I know ministers are very focused on this.
"I think the key issue though, is about implementation and execution. And again, as I said, this is a consistent message that I'm delivering to every single country is that commitments have been made, and New Zealand, of course, also has a commitment of net zero by 2050.
"Each of us needs to make sure that we are on the pathway to getting to net zero by 2050. And if that means that countries over time, look again, at their [pledges], look again at individual sectors to see how they can speed that up, then, of course, they will want to do that."
You mentioned that the UK has made emissions reductions - New Zealand hasn't.
Our prime minister has declared a climate change emergency, but big news this week is there as a court case going on because our government let onshore exploration continue despite banning offshore.
That's despite the international energy agency saying to have any hope of staying below catastrophic levels, we need to stop digging stuff out of the ground.
Does she need to take a leaf out of your book in terms of the strength of her conviction and say 'I stake my job on the need for true action?'
"Well, you're talking about an ongoing legal issue, I don't want to comment on that.
"Let me make a more general point which is I do not think that all of our long term futures lie in fossil fuels.
"We need to be really careful about when we make decisions about future energy policy is to ensure that what we are not doing is locking in long term emissions.
"Now, at the end of the day, countries have made a strong commitments in terms of getting to net zero by 2050. And I think when decisions are made, they need to be seen through that prism and to be consistent with the legally binding climate commitments that countries have made."
You've just been in the Pacific, what are they telling you about their fears about climate change?
"The Pacific Islands, a small island developing states are very much at the front line of climate change, and these are not countries that are responsible for the situation they find themselves in.
"I had an opportunity to visit a village in Fiji and I saw for myself in the terrible impact of rising sea levels on the village, not just flooding, but the impact on farming, the ingress into clean water, this is something that they live with every day.
"And, you know, we talk about limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, but frankly, for these countries, it isn't about thriving, it's about surviving.
"And so the very clear message to me from the folks that I spoke to was that firstly, they need financial support to adapt to the changing climate, and obviously at COP 26 we got a commitment from developed nations to double the amount of adaptation finance by 2025.
"Secondly, they want to ensure that the money is actually getting on the ground to project - so Fiji and the UK are co chairing a group where we're looking at access to finance.
"And the third is we need to ensure that the biggest emitters, the G20 which are responsible for 80 percent of global emissions, absolutely have to step up to the plate and start to ensure that they are curbing their emissions.
"These people are on the frontline of climate change - they have moral authority to ask the rest of us to take action."
On the $100 billion that has been pledged it is widely agreed that the true cost of adaptation, let alone reparations for damage caused is an order of magnitude higher than that.
When will rich countries start paying this to the poor countries?
"So when it comes to $100 billion ... we should get there in 2023.
"But as you say, if you really want to have a clean energy transition across the world, if you really want to ensure that you have climate resilient infrastructure so you're able to adapt to the changing climate, that will require trillions of dollars across the world.
"And one of the things that we were able to do at COP26 is to get the private sector representing $130 trillion of assets to sign up to net zero.
"What we now need to make sure over the coming years is that money is channelled into developing nations to help them with that transition and also for them to grow and create those industries themselves."
