{"id":586331,"date":"2026-08-31T23:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T23:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/586331\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T23:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T23:16:19","slug":"peters-takes-crack-at-luxon-over-paris-climate-agreement-stance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/586331\/","title":{"rendered":"Peters takes crack at Luxon over Paris climate agreement stance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Foreign Minister has taken another crack at the Prime Minister’s political experience, after Christopher Luxon said remaining in the Paris climate agreement would be a bottom line in coalition negotiations.<\/p>\n

By Lillian Hanly of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

Winston Peters, who is also the leader of New Zealand First – a party campaigning on leaving the Paris Agreement, said Luxon’s position demonstrated that “experience does matter in politics”.<\/p>\n

It comes as Pacific nations discuss a commitment to remain in the agreement, which an international relations expert said was a “commendable goal”.<\/p>\n

New Zealand First and ACT, National’s current coalition partners, have both indicated they do not support the commitment as it stands.<\/p>\n

Luxon was asked on Morning Report on Monday whether it was a non-negotiable for National in coalition talks with those parties that New Zealand remains in the agreement.<\/p>\n

Luxon confirmed it was, because it was “common sense”.<\/p>\n

“We need to stay in the Paris Agreement because it only makes New Zealand poorer if we come out of it.”<\/p>\n

Peters, who is currently in Palau for the Pacific Islands Forum<\/a> meeting where climate change is high on the agenda<\/a>, was asked about the comments on Monday evening.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

Asked if Luxon’s bottom line was a wise or unwise position, Peters said “the only comment you can make about that is that it’s a demonstration that experience does matter in politics”.<\/p>\n

Asked if Peters would make it a negotiable issue after the election, Peters said he was “quite astonished” at “comments being made here” and bottom lines “laid out there”.<\/p>\n

His disappointment was directed at those who did not “have the experience which is required under the MMP environment”.<\/p>\n

His judgment was also directed at the “mainstream media” who still considered the country in a first past the post environment, “We are most certainly not.”<\/p>\n

Just last week, Peters took a crack at Luxon following National’s decision to announce legislation banning social media<\/a> for under-16s, despite not having the backing of its coalition partners.<\/p>\n

“It’s a lack of understanding of how the system works, but then again we did say that he hasn’t been around here long,” Peters said.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Peters said the problem with the Paris Agreement for the Pacific nations – who were heavily committed to its target of limiting the global average temperature increase to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels – was that four countries were responsible for the majority of emissions, naming China, Russia, the United States and India.<\/p>\n

\"Christopher<\/p>\n

Christopher Luxon (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

Part of the commitment was also to pursue efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5C.<\/p>\n

“This is our problem we’ve got here. Can we possibly actually honour the Paris Accord in any meaningful way, while that is going on?” said Peters.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged it was “very difficult” to say in Palau because it “doesn’t suit the conversation”.<\/p>\n

“But we’ll have to face reality about what the sign-up of Paris was, particularly since New Zealand’s position was secured in this context that food supply would be exempt.”<\/p>\n

International relations expert Professor Alexander Gillespie told RNZ Palau was seeking a climate declaration that was in two parts.<\/p>\n

First that the countries in the Pacific<\/a> needed to remain committed to the Paris Agreement, and the to 1.5C target.<\/p>\n

“That is a commendable goal,” said Gillespie.<\/p>\n

“You want the Pacific countries to be leading this challenge, because in terms of risk, they are at the forefront of the risk.”<\/p>\n

Gillespie said the difficulty was that some countries, like the US, are no longer members of the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate change, let alone the actual Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n

“So some countries have completely walked away from climate change, whereas others have really weakened their efforts to try to confront it, like New Zealand.<\/p>\n

“So, on one level, you want the commitment to confront climate change, and that is disappearing rapidly,” Gillespie said, while on the other hand, money is needed for adaptation.<\/p>\n

He said around $3 billion was needed annually for the Pacific to adapt to climate change, and “even with the best scenarios, you’re maybe getting $1 billion of that coming through, or just under it at the moment”.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Minister will continue to meet with other Pacific leaders, before Luxon heads to Palau on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Foreign Minister has taken another crack at the Prime Minister’s political experience, after Christopher Luxon said remaining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11508,390,42,43,6430,135,40,38,41,39,136],"class_list":["post-586331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-christopher-luxon","tag-climate-change","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-pacific-islands","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-winston-peters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586331","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=586331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}