They were unsuccessful, but Australia and several Pacific nations were among 24 nations that signed the Bel\u00e9m Declaration on the Transition away from Fossil Fuels on the final day of the summit.<\/p>\n
Documents released to RNZ under the Official Information Act show New Zealand\u2019s negotiating team was also considering signing the declaration – before officials back in New Zealand informed them that Jones did not want them to.<\/p>\n
Earlier, a copy of a \u201cdecision submission\u201d was sent to New Zealand\u2019s climate ambassador, Stuart Horne, to share with Watts, who was at Cop30 with Horne and the rest of the negotiating team.<\/p>\n
In the submission, senior foreign affairs officials said the declaration \u201cdoes not conflict or compromise New Zealand policy settings\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is consistent with the Cop28 outcome regarding the transition away from fossil fuels, which Parties, including New Zealand, agreed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
An assessment against Government priorities found that signing up to the declaration would have a neutral or even positive effect.<\/p>\n
While drafting the submission, officials noted there was \u201can open question about engaging Minister Jones for concurrence, consultation, or information\u201d.<\/p>\n
The final submission was sent to Jones for consultation.<\/p>\n
It was also sent to Trade Minister Todd McClay, but for information only – his input was not sought.<\/p>\n
An email sent the next day said Jones had been consulted.<\/p>\n
\u201cMinister Jones does not want New Zealand to join the Declaration,\u201d a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official informed his colleagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have shared this information with the team supporting Minister Watts in Belem.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the last email in the chain released to RNZ.<\/p>\n
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts led New Zealand’s delegation to Cop30. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Green Party MP Francisco Hernandez, who attended Cop30, said the Government\u2019s agenda \u201cseems to be driven so much by the need to appease New Zealand First\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are they even talking to Shane Jones? He doesn\u2019t have a climate portfolio \u2013 why does it require sign-off from him?\u201d<\/p>\n
National was giving its junior coalition partner too much power, Hernandez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s for consultation, but it does very much read like they\u2019ve effectively taken what Jones has said and used it as an indication of a veto.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hernandez got the impression while he was at Cop30 that the New Zealand delegation had been \u201cvery much on the fence\u201d about signing up to the declaration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seemed to be a finely balanced thing and I feel like [Jones\u2019 view] ended up being a decisive factor.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a written statement, Watts said it was \u201cappropriate\u201d to consult Jones because of his resources and associate energy portfolios.<\/p>\n
Watts did not directly reply to a question about his own stance on the declaration.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand did not join the declaration at Cop30 but as I have previously signalled, the Government continues to support the Cop28 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re contributing to that, for example, through our work to double renewable energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour Party climate spokeswoman Deborah Russell, who attended Cop30 alongside Watts, said there was \u201cno reason\u201d not to sign the declaration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s consistent with what we signed up to at Cop28 and all it did was ask for a road map for getting out of fossil fuels – what\u2019s the problem with that?\u201d<\/p>\n
It was fine for officials to consult Jones, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is that the reason we didn\u2019t sign it, seemingly against officials\u2019 advice, was because Shane Jones said he didn\u2019t agree to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour’s Deborah Russell says New Zealand should have signed the declaration. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Russell said it was clear that Government inaction on climate change was coming from the minor coalition parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cShane Jones has been very pro the extraction of fossil fuels. [So] this is unsurprising given his position on that; it\u2019s nevertheless very disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones told RNZ that \u201clofty agreements\u201d like the declaration were \u201cconceived in milk-fed politics that are vastly different from my earthy, pragmatic approach\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see a future for New Zealand if we deny ourselves access to fossil fuels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s current energy system had to be shored up \u2013 including with imported and domestic coal \u2013 while geothermal energy and potentially more hydroelectricity was opened up, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand has a plan, however, it\u2019s going to take a lot longer than most activists believe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They were unsuccessful, but Australia and several Pacific nations were among 24 nations that signed the Bel\u00e9m Declaration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4995,6097,25078,71,43007,78,66403,2176,2517,23226,111,43,78751,139,69,1314,7228,6753],"class_list":["post-262821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-away","tag-down","tag-fossil","tag-from","tag-fuels","tag-in","tag-involvement","tag-jones","tag-kate","tag-map","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newton","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-road","tag-shane","tag-shut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}