Climate change has been a key focus for iwi leaders gathering at Waitangi this week, as coastal communities across New Zealand’s North Island recover from recent severe weather events.

The National Iwi Chairs Forum, representing more than 70 iwi, has been meeting to set priorities for the year ahead, with leaders pointing to the increasing frequency and severity of weather events as a growing concern.

Taane Aruka Te Aho, one of the rangatahi leaders of Te Kāhu Pōkere — the group that travelled to Brazil for COP30 last year — told RNZ that recent weather events across the motu have become a repeating pattern.

“The data shows us that these climate catastrophes are going to keep coming, more frequent, more severe. We’ve seen that in Te Tai Tokerau, in Tauranga Moana, in Te Araroa,” he said.

On behalf of Te Pou Take Āhuarangi, the climate change arm of the National Iwi Chairs Forum, Te Kāhu Pōkere attended the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in November 2025.

They were the first iwi-mandated rangatahi Māori delegation to attend a global COP.

At this year’s forum, the rōpū is presenting its findings and what can be taken back to hapū, iwi and hapori.

‘Key learnings’
“One of the key learnings for me was the importance of data sovereignty and data strategies harnessing environmental data to help us in our climate-based decision-making,” Te Aho said.

In the wake of flooding and storms in the north and east of the country, dozens of marae again opened their doors to displaced whānau, providing shelter, kai and serving as Civil Defence hubs.

Te Aho said those responses showed the strength of Māori-led systems of care.

“It’s paramount that we acknowledge our whānau, but also fund our whānau to keep resourcing, because they are the ones opening up their doors,” he said.

“To ensure not only our mokopuna are thriving, but to ensure our people of today can go back to work, that they’re looked after. Pākeke mai, rangatahi mai, kaumātua mai, kei konei te iwi Māori ki te tautoko i a rātou.”

Last month, the government announced a $1 million Marae Emergency Response Fund to reimburse marae for welfare support provided during the severe weather events, allowing them to “replenish resources and build resilience.”

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka said at the time, the fund “ensures marae are not left carrying the costs of that mahi”.

‘Building resilience’
“Allowing them to replenish what was used, recover from the immediate response, and continue to build their resilience for future events.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon also praised the response from marae.

“Marae have been exceptional in the way they have stepped up to help their communities, providing shelter, food and care to people in need,” he said.

Pou Tangata chairperson Rahui Papa welcomed government support for marae but said long-term planning was needed.

“Back in Cyclone Gabriel, they talked about a 100-year weather event. It’s come up three or four times within the last few years,” he said.

“And I’m picking that, with my weather crystal ball . . .  it’s going to happen time and time again.

“So comprehensive responses have to be employed. Emergency centres at marae have been just absolutely wonderful. I take my hat off to those communities and those marae that have worked together to really find a way to look after the community.”

Climate change key issue
Ngāti Hine chairperson Pita Tipene said climate change was one of the key issues being coordinated at a national level.

“There’s no point in planning for something next week and next month if we’re consigning our planet to the changes that are upon us,” he said.

“We only have to look at the devastation around Te Tai Tokerau, let alone Tauranga Moana and Tai Rāwhiti.”

Tipene also acknowledged the contribution of Te Kāhu Pōkere.

“The young people who went to COP in Brazil and presented back to us said the solutions are in place and led by people. Their messages were very, very clear and the energy and the focus that they bring to those efforts is significant,” he said.

“The National Iwi Chairs Forum comes together because we know we have much more strength together than we are alone. And so coordinating our efforts into areas that will improve the circumstances of our people or protect and enhance the environments of our people, that’s our overall priority.”

Forum members also unanimously backed a legal challenge by Hauraki iwi Ngāti Manuhiri, which is taking the government to the High Court over amendments to the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act. The changes, made last year, raised the threshold for iwi seeking customary marine title.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

REVIEW: By Amit Sarwal of The Australia Today

Forty years after the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, award-winning journalist and author David Robie has revisited the ship’s fateful last mission — a journey that became a defining chapter in New Zealand’s identity as a nuclear-free nation.

Robie’s newly updated book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, is both a historical record and a contemporary warning.

It captures the courage of those who stood up to nuclear colonialism in the Pacific and draws striking parallels with the existential challenges the region now faces — from climate change to renewed geopolitical tensions.

“The new edition has a completely new 40-page section covering the last decade and the transition in global emphasis from ‘nuclear to climate crisis survivors’, plus new exposés about the French spy ‘blunderwatergate’. Ironically, the nuclear risks have also returned to the fore again,” Robie told The Australia Today.

“The book deals with a lot of critical issues impacting on the Pacific, and is expanded a lot and quite different from the last edition in 2015.”

In May 1985, the Rainbow Warrior embarked on a humanitarian mission unlike any before it. The crew helped 320 Rongelap Islanders relocate to a safer island after decades of radioactive contamination from US nuclear testing at Bikini and Enewetak atolls.

Robie, who joined the ship in Hawai’i as a journalist, recalls the deep humanity of that voyage.

Humanitarian voyage
“The fact that this was a humanitarian voyage . . .  helping the people of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands, it was going to be quite momentous,” he told Pacific Media Network News.

“It’s incredible for an island community where the land is so much part of their existence, their spirituality and their ethos.”

The relocation was both heartbreaking and historic. Islanders dismantled their homes over three days, leaving behind everything except their white-stone church.

“I remember one older woman sitting on the deck among the remnants of their homes,” Robie recalls.

“That image has never left me.”

Their ship’s banner, Nuclear Free Pacific, fluttered as both a declaration and a demand. The Rainbow Warrior became a symbol of Pacific solidarity, linking environmentalism with human rights in a region scarred by the atomic age.

On 10 July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was docked at Auckland’s Marsden Wharf when two underwater bombs tore through its hull. The explosions, planted by French secret agents, sank the vessel and killed Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.

Bombing shockwaves
The bombing sent shockwaves through New Zealand and the world. When French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius finally admitted that his country’s intelligence service had carried out the attack, outrage turned to defiance. New Zealand’s resolve to remain nuclear-free only strengthened.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark contributes a new prologue to the 40th anniversary edition, reflecting on the meaning of the bombing and the enduring relevance of the country’s nuclear-free stance.

“The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of Fernando Pereira was both a tragic and a seminal moment in the long campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific,” she writes.

“It was so startling that many of us still remember where we were when the news came through.”

Clark warns that history’s lessons are being forgotten. “Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States is one of those storm clouds gathering,” she writes.

“New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific.”

Clark’s message in the prologue is clear: the values that shaped New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in the 1980s — diplomacy, peace and disarmament — must not be abandoned in the face of modern power politics.

Geopolitical threats
Robie adds that the book also explores “the geopolitical threats to the region with unresolved independence issues, such as the West Papuan self-determination struggle in Melanesia.”

Clark’s call to action, Robie told The Australia Today, resonates with the Pacific’s broader fight for justice.

“She warns against AUKUS and calls for the country to ‘link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace, which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence.’”

When Eyes of Fire was first published, it instantly became a rallying point for young activists and journalists across the Pacific. Robie’s reporting — which earned him New Zealand’s Media Peace Prize 40 years ago — revealed the human toll of nuclear testing and state-sponsored secrecy.

Today, his new edition reframes that struggle within the context of climate change, which he describes as “the new existential crisis for Pacific peoples.” He sees the same forces of denial, delay, and power imbalance at play.

“This whole renewal of climate denialism, refusal by major states to realise that the solutions are incredibly urgent, and the United States up until recently was an important part of that whole process about facing up to the climate crisis,” Robie says.

“It’s even more important now for activism, and also for the smaller countries that are reasonably progressive, to take the lead.”

For Robie, Eyes of Fire is not just a history book — it’s a call to conscience.

“I hope it helps to inspire others, especially younger people, to get out there and really take action,” he says.

“The future is in your hands.”

The Rainbow Warrior returned to Aotearoa in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing. Forty years on, the story of the Rainbow Warrior continues to burn — not as a relic of the past, but as a beacon for the Pacific’s future through Robie’s Eyes of Fire.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The United Nations climate change summit COP29 has “once again ignored” the Pacific Islands, a group of regional climate advocacy organisations say.

The Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) said today that “the richest nations turned their backs on their legal and moral obligations” as the UN meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, fell short of expectations.

“This COP was framed as the ‘finance COP’, a critical moment to address the glaring gaps in climate finance and advance other key agenda items,” the group said.

“However, not only did COP29 fail to deliver adequate finance, but progress also stalled on crucial issues like fossil fuel phase-out, Loss and Damage, and the Just Transition Work Plan.

“The outcomes represent a catastrophic failure to meet the scale of the crisis, leaving vulnerable nations to face escalating risks with little support.”

The UN meeting concluded with a new climate finance goal, with rich nations pledging a US$300 billion annual target by 2035 to the global fight against climate change.

The figure was well short of what developing nations were asking for — more than US$1 trillion in assistance.

‘Failure of leadership’
Campaigners and non-governmental organisations called it a “betrayal” and “a shameful failure of leadership”, forcing climate vulnerable nations, such as the Pacific Islands, “to accept a token financial pledge to prevent the collapse of negotiations”.

PICAN said the pledged finance relied “heavily on loans rather than grants, pushing developing nations further into debt”.

“Worse, this figure represents little more than the long-promised $100 billion target adjusted for inflation. It does not address the growing costs of adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage faced by vulnerable nations.

“In fact, it explicitly ignores any substantive decision to include loss and damage just acknowledging it.”

Vanuatu Climate Action Network coordinator Trevor Williams said developed nations systematically dismantled the principles of equity enshrined in the Paris Agreement at COP29.

“Their unwillingness to contribute sufficient finance, phase out fossil fuels, or strengthen their NDCs demonstrates a deliberate attempt to evade responsibility. COP29 has taught us that if optionality exists, developed countries will exploit it to stall progress.”

Kiribati Climate Action Network’s Robert Karoro said the Baku COP was a failure on every front.

‘No meaningful phase out of fossil fuels’
“Finance fell far short, Loss and Damage was weakened, and there was no meaningful commitment to phasing out fossil fuels,” he said.

“Our communities cannot wait for empty promises to materialise-we need action that addresses the root causes of the crisis and supports our survival.”

Tuvalu Climate Action Network’s executive director Richard Gokrun said the “outcome is personal”.

“Every fraction of a degree in warming translates into lost lives, cultures and homelands. Yet, the calls of the Pacific and other vulnerable nations were silenced in Baku,” he said.

“From the weakened Loss and Damage fund to the rollback on Just Transition principles, this COP has failed to deliver justice on any front.”

PICAN’s regional director Rufino Varea described the outcome of the meeting as “a death sentence for millions”.

He said the Pacific Islands have been clear that climate finance must be grants-based and responsive to the needs of frontline communities.

“Instead, developed countries are handing us debt while dismantling the principles of equity and justice that the Paris Agreement was built on. This is a betrayal, plain and simple.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Climate justice and gender equality cannot be achieved separately, a Pacific women’s conference heard this week.

Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine said the climate crisis faced in the region and the world would make gender equality more difficult to attain.

“For example, we know that we cannot have gender equality without climate justice, and vice versa,” Dr Heine told delegates at the the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women gathered in the Northern Pacific for the first time in 40 years.

“Our aspirations are shared,” Dr Heine said.

“We have convened on Majuro because of one of those aspirations is the empowerment of Pacific women and girls in all their diversities and ultimately to reach gender parity in our region.”

President Heine said that for gender parity to be achieved, every Pacific woman’s ability, talent dreams would need to be harnessed.

“We must draw on the resourcefulness of Pacific women, rich in our diverse cultures and traditions, to map a way forward for us, tapping into our region’s diversity and creativity to find solutions that are embedded in our Pacific philosophies and world views,” she said.

“We know that the climate crisis will make achieving gender equality even harder — and that we cannot solve the climate crisis without gender equality.”

Women hit fastest, hardest
Heine said women were often hit fastest and hardest by climate impacts.

“They are the first responders of the family, responsible for ensuring that the family is taken care of and healthy,” she said.

“As climate change brings droughts, they are charged with securing water; when children or the elderly are affected by extreme heat, it is women who are the primary caregivers.

“In the Marshalls, where women often participate in the informal economy through the production of handicrafts, for example, we know that the material used for those handicrafts are at risk as sea levels rise and salt water inundates our arable land.

“Women are also central to the solutions to the climate crisis.”

Dr Heine said Pacific women had been some of the strongest voices for climate ambition at the international level while at home they were caretakers for solar panels, providing communities with clean energy.

She described them as being at the heart of securing climate justice.

Political commentators said this showed that regional leaders recognised the importance of gender equality and the meetings provided opportunities to collectively discuss how to advance their commitments to the issue at national, regional and international levels.

President Heine acknowledged that the Pacific had made what she described as remarkable progress on women’s rights on many fronts in recent decades.

“But these gains are far from consistent and much more remains to be done,” she warned.

Women’s health, gender-based violence, and climate justice were the themes for discussion during the conferences and highlight some of the key challenges Pacific women continue to face.

Dr Heine said all these issues aggravated the impacts of inequalities faced by women and girls as a result of existing social norms and structures.

She said the triennial conference and the Pacific Ministers for Women meeting were important platforms at which to unpack these and other barriers to gender equality.

Netani Rika is an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Barangay New Zealand’s Rene Molina has interviewed the country’s first Filipino Green MP Francisco Hernandez who was sworn into Parliament yesterday as the party’s latest member.

This is the first interview with Hernandez who replaces former Green Party co-leader James Shaw after his retirement from politics to take up a green investment advisory role.

Hernandez talks about his earlier role as a climate change activist and his role with New Zealand’s Climate Commission, and his life experiences.

The interviewer — educator, digital media producer and community advocate Rene Nonoy Molina — is also a member of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).

“I was involved in the New Zealand climate crisis movement as an activist,” Hernandez says.

“I was involved in a group called Generation Zero, which is the youth climate justice group and that’s how I ended up getting involved in the New Zealand youth delegation that went to Paris.

“So that’s separate from my Climate Change Commission work which came after.”

Hernandez is the son of a member of Joseph Estrada’s ruling party in the Philippines before its government changed in 2001, according to the Otago University magazine.

He migrated to New Zealand with his family when he was 12 and is a former president of the Otago University Students’ Association with an honours degree in politics.

Francisco B. Hernandez talks to Rene Molina.    Video: Barangay NZ

He has also worked as an advisor at the Climate Commission, reports RNZ News.

He stood for Dunedin in the last election, coming third with more than 8000 votes — not far behind National’s Michael Woodhouse (over 9000) but far behind the more than 17,000 votes of Labour’s Rachel Brooking.

Published in collaboration with Barangay New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new legal framework to support climate-displaced people and guarantee their human rights is being served up ahead of COP28.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference opens tomorrow and is being held in the fossil fuel giant United Arab Emirates (UAE) from November 30 to December 12.

The human rights advocacy centre — the International Centre for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD) — wants to ensure climate frontline communities will not be neglected.

The UN is estimating there could be 1.2 billion climate-displaced people by 2050.

ICAAD and partners are calling for climate mobility justice to feature on the agenda of COP28.

The Human Rights Centre wants discussions around how to expand protections for climate-displaced persons to ensure their dignity is upheld now and in the future.

In the Pacific, many islands could become uninhabitable in the coming decades due to sea level rise, yet there is no legal clarity on how, or if, these communities will be protected.

ICAAD director and facilitator Erin Thomas said more than 40 indigenous and climate activists and researchers from eight Pacific Island countries were advocating for COP28.

‘Right to life of dignity’
“This is part of our right to life of dignity project which we have been working on over a number of years,” she said.

“But one of the thornier issues that the international community has yet to respond to effectively is protecting those who are displaced across borders.”

The group warned that climate change is already creating human rights abuses, especially for those already migrating without access to dignified migration pathways.

At the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) annual meeting in Rarotonga two weeks ago, regional leaders noted that more than 50,000 Pacific people were displaced due to climate and disaster related events annually.

The leaders endorsed a Pacific regional framework on climate mobility to “provide practical guidance to governments planning for and managing climate mobility”.

They also called on development partners to “provide substantially greateer levels of climate finance, technology and capacity to accelerate decarbonisation of the Blue Pacific”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele says the country joined an agreement with the United States only after changes to wording relating to China.

He said the country did not want to be forced to choose sides, and the Pacific should be seen as a region of peace and cooperation.

Manele was in Wellington today for an official meeting with his New Zealand counterpart Nanaia Mahuta, and was welcomed to Parliament with a pōwhiri today.

Solomon Islands has been a central focus in discussions over partnerships and security in the region after it signed a partnership agreement with China in April.

After a draft of the agreement was leaked in March, New Zealand had described it as “gravely concerning”, but the full text of the final document has never been made public.

The US has been working to contain China’s growing influence with Pacific countries, and last week brought leaders of 12 Pacific nations to Washington DC for two days with the aim of finalising a new Pacific strategy with a joint declaration of partnership.

Solomon Islands had initially refused to sign the declaration, which covered 11 areas of cooperation, but later agreed after a requirement for Pacific Island states to consult with each other before signing security deals with regional impacts was removed.

Decision clarified
Manele clarified that decision when questioned by reporters this afternoon.

“In the initial draft there were some references that we were not comfortable with, but then the officials under the discussions and negotiations … were able to find common ground, and then that took us on board, so we signed,” he said.

Asked what specifically they were uncomfortable with, he confirmed it related to indirect references to China.

“There was some references that put us in a position that we would have to choose sides, and we don’t want to be placed in a position that we have to choose sides.”

He said the Solomons’ agreement with China was domestically focused and did not include provision for a military base.

“My belief … and my hope is this — that the Pacific should be a region of peace, of co-operation and collaboration, and it should not be seen as a region of confrontation, of conflict and of war,” he said.

“And of course we are guided by the existing regional security arrangements that we have in place — and these are the Biketawa declaration as well as the Boe declaration.

US re-engagement welcomed
“We welcome the US re-engagement with the Pacific and we look forward to working with all our partners.”

After securing its partnership agreement, US officials acknowledged they had let the relationship with Pacific nations “drift” in recent years, and there was more work to do.

Manele said he was “delighted” to be in Aotearoa for the first time in about eight years, after his previous plans to visit two years ago were put on hold by the covid-19 pandemic.

He thanked New Zealand for support in helping manage and contain the virus, including with vaccines and medical equipment.

Manele said the discussion between the ministers covered the RSE scheme, the need to review the air services agreement, the 2050 Blue Pacific strategy, and maritime security.

He was keen to stress the importance of increased flights between New Zealand and Solomon Islands.

“I think this is important, we are tasking our officials to start a conversation, we’ll be writing formally to the government of New Zealand to review the air services agreement that we have between our two countries,” he said.

Boost for business, tourism
“This will not only facilitate the RSE scheme but I hope will also facilitate the movement of investors and business people and general tourism.”

The country was also hopeful of more diplomatic engagement with New Zealand.

“Not only at the officials level but also at the ministerial level and at the leaders level, and your Prime Minister has an invitation to my Prime Minister to visit New Zealand in the near future, and my Prime Minister is looking forward to visiting.”

Increased engagement would be required, he said, from all Pacific Island Forum partners, including Australia and New Zealand, to tackle climate change in line with the Blue Pacific Continent 2050 strategy agreed at the most recent Forum meeting in Fiji.

Both Manele and Mahuta highlighted climate change as the greatest threat to security in the region.

He was to attend a roundtable discussion with New Zealand business leaders this evening.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Only people power can ensure genuine enduring progress on climate and people need to know the truth if they are to act on it. For that reason greenwashing is the enemy of progress on climate and where you stand on greenwashing is the Rubicon of our times.

I have spent decades of my life as a climate activist fighting various deliberate forms of climate science denial propagated by climate polluting companies and their allied political parties, politicians, lobby groups and commentators.

The good news is that we have mostly won that battle. The bad news is that they have a new tactic, greenwashing, which is now a major obstacle to progress on climate change. Greenwashing is when businesses or politicians give a false impression, or spin, on their products or policies to give the impression that they have a positive impact on the environment when they don’t.

We now face a new landscape in which even oil companies claim to be doing their bit for the climate with “carbon offsets” and “2050 net zero goals”. Their aim is to stop real action on climate by making people think it is all under control.

One of the jobs of the government is to sort out the real climate actions from the greenwashing, to hold industry to account. And of course, one of the jobs of the government is to not engage in greenwashing themselves.

The problem with some of the actions of the current Aotearoa New Zealand government is that rather than holding business to account for its greenwashing, on some vital climate issues the government is actually a proponent of greenwashing.

This greenwashing is closely linked to a wrong-headed theory of change which we hear repeatedly from this government — the idea that climate issues can only be solved through consensus, especially consensus with the polluters and their representatives. The idea that we can’t make real policy to cut climate pollution without the consent of the polluters and their representatives is dangerous and inconsistent with the history of making change.

There are fundamental conflicts in the climate policy space — some industries will not accept that they need to cut emissions. The attempt to gloss over these conflicts and seek consensus means the government adopts policies that the polluters will accept, and which consequently do not cut emissions. This policy outcome is then sold to the public as a great victory when in truth it is a defeat — it is greenwashed.

Before getting into the specifics of the problems I want to acknowledge that this government has done some good things on climate. The ban on new oil and gas exploration permits was a win, even though it excluded onshore Taranaki and allowed existing permits to be extended.

The cap on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser was a win, even though it is a very high cap which has yet to be enforced. Greenpeace publicly celebrated these wins and congratulated the government on making these decisions, even while pointing out their limitations.

I tried to provide a transparent assessment of the environmental performance of the Ardern government back in 2020. I spent a decade as Green Party co-leader and I know there are wins and losses in politics and that compromise is a reality of politics in a healthy democracy.

But honestly admitted compromise is one thing, and greenwashing is another.

There will always be arguments as to what is an acceptable political compromise. We need to separate the issue of what is an acceptable compromise to enter government from the issue of greenwashing. Determining what is an acceptable compromise for the Greens to join the Labour government is formally a matter of decision for the Green Party and the Labour Party rather than the climate movement.

People like me are entitled to our views of the compromise, but it is the Green Party and the Labour Party that have to decide if it’s worth it. I am not a member of the Green Party or the Labour Party.

The issue of greenwashing, however, is an issue which is of direct and immediate concern for the wider climate movement. This is because when the government sells their policies as great climate advances, when in reality they are not, it misleads the wider public and the climate movement.

People can think they don’t need to push hard on climate because it is under control, when it is not. We then need to spend our time highlighting and explaining why the claimed win is actually spin, rather than campaigning for meaningful action.

This undermines our ability to get more significant progress on climate policy because the power and leadership to get progress on climate (like all other progressive issues) comes from civil society and if civil society is disarmed by greenwashing then climate policy follows dead end paths, stalls or  stops.

But why is greenwashing the biggest challenge the climate movement faces at the moment. How did we get here?

Goals remain unchanged, but tactics evolve
As I mentioned above, the first thing to understand is that climate policy is unavoidably and irrevocably conflictual, and hence political. That is because on the one hand the enduring overarching goal of big climate polluters in the fossil fuel business and industrial agribusiness is to prevent government regulations that will force them to cut their climate emissions.

While on the other hand the climate movement aims for emission cuts to achieve a stable climate.

This is a fundamental conflict globally, and in Aotearoa, and no amount of pseudo consensus can wish this conflict away.

Big climate polluters believe, rightly, that government regulation and pricing to drive emissions reductions threatens their business models and profitability. Other sectors of the economy, such as IT, can more easily adapt to a low carbon future, but those businesses in the industries like coal and synthetic fertiliser can’t adapt, and they intend to fight efforts to cut emissions all the way.

While their goal of preventing government regulation to force reductions in emissions has remained consistent, their tactics to achieve this goal have changed. And it is understanding the way their tactics have evolved that it becomes clear just how problematic the current government’s climate policies have become.

At the beginning the tactic they used was to deny the compelling weight of scientific evidence supporting the theory of human induced climate change. Climate denial was stock in trade for many right wing parties and agribusiness and oil industry lobby groups from the 1990s through to the 2010s.

But after a while that stopped working so they changed tactics to stressing uncertainty especially in the 2000s. They said climate change might be a thing, but there is so much uncertainty so we shouldn’t do anything about it. They played up the nature of scientific inquiry — that theories are not beyond questioning because they are not religious texts — to emphasise uncertainty and the need for delay. It was really just another form of climate denialism.

Billions spent on climate denialism
The polluting industries spent billions promoting climate denialism and uncertainty in order to block government regulation to cut emissions. They bought politicians, public relations firms and sadly some scientists to promote these ideas to delay action on climate. Their ideas were reproduced widely by the conservative commentariat, and many still are.

I spent many years of my life fighting climate denialism and eventually through the efforts of millions of climate activists we (mostly) won the battle against climate denialism. There are now few major governments or corporations or industry lobby groups that rely on climate denialist arguments to block government regulation to cut emissions.

Straight out climate science deniers have been pushed to the margins like Groundswell or the Act Party.

But the goal of the fossil fuel and agribusiness polluters remains consistent — they still want to stop government regulation to cut emissions — so they need a new tactic. And that tactic is greenwashing.

These days the polluters and their representatives say, “yes climate change is a thing” and “yes we should do something about it and you will be happy to know that we are doing something about it.”

Hence, they argue, there is no need for government regulation. Even though they spent the last 30 years blocking every attempt to reduce emissions and even denying climate science, they argue that they now take it seriously and there is absolutely no need for the government to do anything.

And what they are doing is often nonsense like net carbon zero targets in 2050 or buying offshore carbon credits or an industry controlled pricing mechanism like He Waka Eke Noa, or nitrification inhibitors etc. They don’t actually cut emissions in any significant way.

The purpose of greenwashing may seem relatively retail when it is done by a single company to sell stuff to consumers, but at a systemic level the purpose of greenwashing is to head off government attempts to introduce regulations and pricing that will force emission reductions.

There are of course some corporations and governments taking significant actions to cut emissions, but there are also many corporate and government actions that are just greenwashing.

Separating out the genuine climate actions from greenwashing is something that defines the climate politics of our time. And this is why the approach taken by the New Zealand government is so very problematic. People assume that the Climate Minister, especially a Green Party Climate Minister, will not perpetuate greenwashing, and will call it out, but it has not always been the case with James Shaw, and that makes it all the more insidious.

Government greenwashes the biggest polluter: Agribusiness
Which brings us to the problem with the current New Zealand government climate policy. Climate policy in this country mostly boils down to what you are doing about agribusiness emissions (biogenic agriculture emissions alone are about 50 percent of emissions) and transport (20 percent). The rest matters too but if you aren’t tackling these two then you aren’t tackling climate change.

Transport policy has not been great from a climate perspective but here I want to focus on the bigger problem — agribusiness — particularly intensive dairy.

We have had the same Prime Minister and the same Climate Minister for the nearly five years of this government. There have been a plethora of nice sounding climate announcements — the PM said that climate was her generation’s “nuclear free moment”, we’ve had the so-called Zero Carbon Act, a climate emergency declaration, an independent climate commission established, emissions reductions plans, improved nationally determined targets for reduction, signed the global methane pledge etc.

But there is still no effective government policy to cut emissions from agribusiness, by far the biggest polluter.

The problem is not just that the government is doing virtually nothing to cut emissions from agribusiness, the problem is that it is saying that it is taking climate change seriously.

It is equivalent to the Australian government doing nothing about coal or the Canadian government doing nothing about tar sands oil — all while telling us how seriously they take climate change. This is greenwashing and it is dangerous because many people think climate action is happening.

When the claims of meaningful action are fronted by a “nuclear free-moment” Prime Minister and a Green Party Climate Minister – the general observer could be forgiven for trusting that those claims are true.

The evidence that this government has done very little to cut agribusiness emissions is bountiful but let me focus on just one central area — agriculture and the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Taking government at its word
The government repeatedly tells us that the Emissions Trading Scheme is the most important tool to cut emissions. This is debatable but let us take them at their word.

If it is so important then why, 14 years after the ETS began in 2008, is the biggest polluting sector, agribusiness, still exempt from the ETS? For 14 years agribusiness lobbyists and industry groups such as Federated Farmers and Dairy NZ have successfully fought a battle of predatory delay to stop their sector facing a price on emissions, apparently the most important climate tool.

And every government (Clark, Key, Ardern) has given them exactly what they want — perpetual delay.

When the ETS was passed into law in 2008, the Labour government of the day delayed agriculture’s entry until 2013. A bad start.

At the time, myself and many others argued against the delay but the Clark government wouldn’t budge. The John Key-Bill English National government (2008-2017) that followed, delayed agriculture’s entry indefinitely. From the perspective of agribusiness, delaying is winning, and they were winning.

For a moment in 2017/2018 it looked like the newly elected Ardern government might have the courage of its convictions and that the agribusiness lobby would finally lose its battle to stop climate action.

The Labour-NZ First coalition agreement explicitly committed them to support agriculture’s entry into the ETS at 5 percent of its obligations. With NZ First’s vote secured, there was a Parliamentary majority to bring agriculture into the ETS. Finally.

Backed down under pressure
But then in 2019 the Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw backed down to agribusiness pressure and instead of agriculture facing a price on its emissions they adopted an industry proposal — He Waka Eke Noa.

He Waka Eke Noa was a proposal from agribusiness for a joint government-agribusiness initiative looking at pricing agribusiness climate pollution. In effect He Waka Eke Noa handed over to industry the design of the system to price their own pollution. New Zealand agribusiness was beside themselves with joy.

In time it would become clear that it was not just that industry would design the system, but they would design a system that they would control going forward.

And, the target date for starting pricing was 2025. That was two elections away — 2020 and 2023 —  and the chances of the current ministers still being there was remote. And if they did manage to win in 2020 and 2023, it was almost unheard of for a government to win a fourth term in 2026 so anything implemented in 2025 could be easily undone.

He Waka Eke Noa’s timelines left the industry partying. And as for the politicians, none of them were likely to be around to get the blame when nothing happened either.

In one of the defining moments of this government’s climate inaction, Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw stood next to Dairy NZ and Federated Farmers to launch the five year He Waka Eke Noa project, instead of implementing their own policy of immediately putting agriculture into the ETS.

James Shaw celebrated He Waka Eke Noa and went so far as to say “nothing about us without us” —  that is he used the slogan of the disability advocacy movement to infer that the agribusiness sector shouldn’t be regulated without their consent and agreement. That was a real low point I must say.

Predictably, three years of delay later, in 2022, the final report from He Waka Eke Noa was released detailing a complicated system that would cut agribusiness emissions by less than 1 percent. The headline reduction was higher but that is because it included the reductions that are supposed to come from technologies that don’t currently exist (magic bullets), the reductions that result from the unrelated freshwater regulations, and the reductions that come out of the waste sector.

Incidentally agribusiness has been saying those same magic bullets have been just around the corner for the last 20 years. If you strip out reductions projected to come from magic bullets, freshwater regulations and waste, the emissions reductions from the He Waka Eke Noa pricing mechanism are less than 1 percent. In addition, under the proposal industry would control the mechanism for regulating their own pollution — classic industry capture.

From the industry perspective He Waka Eke Noa was designed to stop government regulation i.e. stop agribusiness going into the ETS. Under criticism from Groundswell, both Federated Farmers and DairyNZ touted their achievement in keeping their industry out of the ETS.

The National Party also voiced its support for the final report. The Climate Minister was a little more muted.

Most people listening to the government talk about He Waka Eke Noa would think that it has been a tremendous success — after all doesn’t the government always say it wants consensus on climate? Whereas in fact its sole success has been to delay government regulation of agribusiness climate pollution — by three years so far — and, even if it were implemented, by its own calculations emissions would be reduced by less than 1 percent.

That is what consensus with polluters looks like and that is the corner that Ardern and Shaw have painted themselves into.

The purpose of greenwashing is to make us think industry is finally taking climate seriously and hence there is no need for government regulation, while in reality very little is happening to cut emissions.

He Waka Eke Noa is a perfect example of greenwashing:

• It looks like industry is taking climate change seriously with media coverage of all their hard work;
• The new scheme, if it is implemented, is controlled by industry, so full industry capture;
• The scheme has almost no impact on actually reducing emissions; and
• Even if, god forbid, the government were to reject He Waka Eke Noa and instead revert to putting agribusiness into the ETS when it makes a decision in late 2022, it is too late for that decision to be fully institutionalised before the next election, so it will be easily removed if there is a change of government in 2023 and not so hard even after the 2026 election. Predatory delay has been such a successful tactic so far for the industry, why change now?

The Glasgow target
The decisions by this government not to cut agribusiness emissions created cascading international problems of perception for the New Zealand government when it was required to offer a new target for emissions reductions at the Glasgow climate conference in November 2021.

The government wanted to look good with an ambitious target (known as a Nationally Determined Contribution) but had few policies to actually cut emissions. Other countries were raising doubts about the government’s climate commitment. The ETS was supposed to do the heavy lifting but, as the Climate Commission admitted recently, under current settings the “NZ ETS is likely to deliver mostly new plantation forestry rather than gross emission reductions”.

The answer was to use the potential future purchase of overseas carbon offsets to present a net target that looked ambitious.

The Climate Minister announced with great fanfare that New Zealand would commit to a 50 percent cut in net emissions below 2005 levels by 2030. NZ paraded its 50 percent target around the Glasgow climate conference. It sounds good until you realise not only does the target use tricky accounting to make it look much larger than it is, but that TWO THIRDS of the emissions reductions would come from buying offshore carbon offsets.

Sorry about the shouty capitals but nothing yells “greenwashing” quite like offshore carbon offsetting. Carbon offsets are notoriously corrupt, open to double counting, and are the carbon equivalent of papal indulgences. They are what you do when you don’t have policy to cut emissions but want to look good.

Yet this is the government’s plan to reach our international climate target — greenwashing. The Climate Commission has urged the government to contract the offsets fast: “It is essential that the government secure access to sources of offshore mitigation as soon as possible”. Instead of, you know, actually cutting emissions.

And just to show the government is not without a sense of humour they signed up to the global methane pledge to cut methane emissions — without a plan to cut methane emissions! In fact, in case industry was worried, when Shaw returned from Glasgow he confirmed that the government would not introduce any new policies to cut methane. Moooo.

But what about the giant climate bureaucratic superstructure?
Faced with this evidence of greenwashing on agribusiness and the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) some people say “what about the Zero Carbon Act”? That proves they are serious doesn’t it? I think that we do need institutional reform to deal with climate, and I’ve pointed to what we need and some of the problems of the Zero Carbon Act before, but it should not be at the expense of immediate climate action.

Much of the government’s climate policy focus in the last five years has been on building an elaborate climate bureaucratic structure. This began with the years-long process to get cross-party support for the Zero Carbon Act, the years-long process to establish the Climate Commission, then there was the years-long processes to build the carbon budgets and the Emissions Reduction Plan.

These structures and processes do look good but they don’t cut emissions – only regulations and policies that cut emissions actually cut emissions. Now you might argue that over time this bureaucratic superstructure will lead to significant emission reductions, and maybe they will, and maybe they won’t, and maybe they can be improved.

The problem is we don’t have years to wonder and hope. We need to have been tangibly cutting actual emissions for the last five years, and cutting them harder over the next five, if we are to play any part in stalling global climate catastrophe.

Spending five years on not implementing much policy to cut emissions, in order to implement a bureaucratic superstructure that might result in emissions cuts down the road if a future government has the courage to use the climate superstructure to implement the policies that this one has not, is plainly not a serious policy to cut emissions. Just implement the policies.

However, in agriculture, our biggest polluter, there is no ambiguity that this climate policy structure has delivered nothing. The Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) has almost nothing to offer except magical technologies that don’t currently exist. The government’s excuse for offering no serious policy on cutting agribusiness emissions in the ERP is, you guessed it, He Waka Eke Noa. Predictably Federated Farmers really liked the Emission Reduction Plan, because it, you know, didn’t reduce agribusiness emissions!

The 2022-23 Budget that followed the ERP allocated $710 million over four years to agribusiness climate initiatives, but it turns out the money is to look for magic bullets to cut emissions. And some of these magic bullets might be worse — recently $11 million was given to research nitrification inhibitors that kill soil biology in order to cut nitrous oxide emissions following the application of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers.

Killing our soils is the exact opposite of what we need to do. The money in the ERP comes from ETS revenue paid by others, because agribusiness is not required to pay into the Emissions Trading Scheme. It is a giant subsidy from everyone else to agribusiness to maintain the pretence of climate action.

It seems a big price to pay to maintain the pretence — it would be a lot cheaper just to paint the cows green.

Some might argue that the climate bureaucratic superstructure may not achieve much in reality, but it is not actually harmful. Sure, the argument goes, this elaborate policy superstructure has wasted lots of time and energy which could have gone into policies that would actually cut emissions, but it is harmless enough.

Well, maybe you’d only think that if you haven’t been following the litigation. Crown Law, the government’s lawyers, are using the Zero Carbon Act etc to actually block climate action in the courts. Here are two quick examples.

In the most recent case against the Energy Minister’s decision to issue more onshore oil and gas exploration permits, the Minister’s lawyers argued that the Zero Carbon Act allowed for more oil and gas exploration and so it was fine. This is in spite of the fact that the world already has more oil and gas reserves than can be burnt to stay under the 1.5 degree guidance that is in the Zero Carbon Act.

Previously climate lawyers have been able to argue that the global situation for oil and gas must be taken into account but now, significantly, under the Zero Carbon Act, the Crown argues you can only consider the New Zealand situation. So the Zero Carbon Act is being used to justify oil exploration and protect it from legal attack by climate activists.

And in a previous case against the Climate Commission, James Shaw’s lawyers argued that the 1.5 degree target in the Zero Carbon Act was only “aspirational” and not binding on the government.

Marc Daalder reported it thus:

“Crown Law counsel Polly Higbee told the High Court references to 1.5 degrees [in the Zero Carbon Act] used “broad, aspirational language” and it would be “too prescriptive” to argue that the purpose section placed any actual duty on the Government.”

No actual duty on the government from the 1.5 degree target in the Zero Carbon Act is what Shaw’s lawyers told the court. Outside the court, when speaking to climate activists, Shaw says that the 1.5 degrees target is binding, but in court, where it matters, his lawyers argue it is not.

It’s hard to think of a clearer example of greenwashing. There were many people in the climate movement who worked hard to deliver the Zero Carbon Act and honestly believed it would be a significant tool to cut emissions, rather than defend oil exploration against legal attack.

The final argument for these bland instruments like the Zero Carbon Act is that we need to get broad political elite consensus on climate to get change. History tells us the opposite. To choose just one example which is close to the PM’s heart — nuclear free.

Nuclear free New Zealand was not a result of a consensus process. It was vociferously opposed by the National Party and its many allies — they voted against the legislation and spoke out against it. Nuclear free NZ was not won by reducing our ambitions to what was acceptable to the National Party and the US State Department.

Thousands of peace and environment activists campaigned for it and the Labour government eventually came round to their position, and stood up to provide leadership. There was no political elite consensus. The reason that the National Party never repealed the nuclear free legislation when they returned to government in 1990 was because of its broad support from civil society, support that resulted from civil society campaigners and a Prime Minister willing to fight for the policy (once he finally came round to it).

Introducing vacuous climate legislation that achieves little, in order to get the National Party to vote for it, is pointless, or worse.

Winning the debate on real climate action is the only way to ensure it sticks, and greenwashing undermines that public campaigning.

Conclusion
During the 2017 election campaign I bumped into Jacinda Ardern in Wellington airport and she told me my job at Greenpeace was to hold her government accountable. I respected her for saying that and I agreed with it, and still do. And so that is what I’m doing.

The government has done some good stuff on climate, but on the really big and difficult climate policy issues they are greenwashing. And the greenwashing has disoriented and weakened the climate movement and meant that we are getting much weaker climate policy out of this government than we would otherwise.

And I refer to Ardern rather than Shaw deliberately because there is an uncomfortable political reality that sits behind all this: Jacinda Ardern makes the climate policy in this government and James Shaw presents it. The first rule of politics is to learn how to count — look at the numbers and you will understand this government — Labour has a simple majority and Shaw isn’t even in Cabinet.

James Shaw may like the climate policy, he may not, I don’t know. He may be the architect of crucial bits of it, or not, I don’t know. He is allowed to say he would like to improve the climate policy, but he cannot speak out against it and keep his job. And once you dwell on that hard political truth, all this makes a lot more sense.

It’s not my job or Greenpeace’s job to say whether that is an acceptable position for the Green Party to find itself in, but it is our job to call out greenwash when we see it. We believe that only people power can ensure genuine enduring progress on climate and people need to know the truth if they are to act on it.

For that reason greenwashing is the enemy of progress on climate and where you stand on greenwashing is the Rubicon of our times.

Dr Russel Norman is executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa and was co-leader of the Green Party for nine years. He resigned from Parliament as an MP in 2015 to take up the Greenpeace position.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The United States insists it is a Pacific nation and has unveiled a raft of new strategies to better engage with other nations in the Region.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is the first Secretary of State to visit Fiji in nearly 37 years.

During his historic visit, Blinken announced that the US was pursuing deeper engagement plans with Pacific nations.

A key element and motivation for those plans is the strengthening of the US presence to match the growing influence of China in the Pacific.

In its engagement strategy, he said that China had combined its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological might to pursue “a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power”.

During an eight-hour visit to Fiji, while returning from a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) meeting in Australia, Blinken announced climate change financing, military and other exchange initiatives and plans for a new embassy in the Solomon Islands among other foreign diplomacy engagements.

Blinken has been on a world tour for the past several months to discuss two main issues: covid-19 and China, with his counterparts including Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne, Indian Minister of External Affairs Dr S. Jaishankar and Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Hayashi Yoshimasa.

New Indo-Pacific engagement strategy
While in Fiji, Blinken met with acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and 18 Pacific Island leaders virtually, during which he announced the US government’s brand new Indo-Pacific engagement strategy, calling the region “vital to our own prosperity, our own progress”.

Blinken said that the new strategy was the result of a year of extensive engagement in the Asia Pacific region and would reflect US determination to strengthen its long-term position in the region.

“We will focus on every corner of the region, from Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, to South Asia and Oceania, including the Pacific Islands,” he said.

“We do so at a time when many of our allies and partners, including in Europe, are increasingly turning their own attention to the region; and when there is broad, bipartisan agreement in the U.S. Congress that the United States must, too.”

This American refocus is a direct response to the increasing influence of China in the Pacific.

Since 2006, Chinese trade and foreign aid to the Pacific has significantly increased. Beijing is now the third largest donor to the region.

Although Chinese aid still represents only 8 percent of all foreign aid between 2011 and 2017 (according to The Lowy Institute), many Pacific island governments have favoured concessional loans from China, to finance large infrastructure developments.

Chinese ‘coercion and aggression’
In Solomon Islands, where Blinken announced the latest US Embassy would be opened, almost half of all two-way trade is with China.

In describing China’s actions toward expanding its influence, Blinken stated:

“The PRC’s coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific. From the economic coercion of Australia to the conflict along the Line of Actual Control with India to the growing pressure on Taiwan and bullying of neighbours in the East and South China Seas, our allies and partners in the region bear much of the cost of the PRC’s harmful behaviour.

“In the process, the PRC is also undermining human rights and international law, including freedom of navigation, as well as other principles that have brought stability and prosperity to the Indo-Pacific.”

When questioned by reporters about US intentions for “authentic engagement that speaks to the real needs of the islanders”, Blinken replied that the US sees the Pacific as the region for the future, and that their intentions were beyond mere security concerns.

“It’s much more fundamental than that. When we are looking at this region that we share, we see it as the region for the future, vital to our own prosperity, our own progress.

“Sixty per cent of global GDP is here, 50 percent of the world’s population is here. For all the challenges that we have, at the moment we’re working on together, it’s also a source of tremendous opportunity.”

Democracy and transparency
Blinken insisted that Washington’s new strategy was about using democracy and transparency to build a free and open Indo-Pacific which was committed to a “rules based order”.

Moving onto economics, the Secretary of State stated that the US intends to forge partnerships and alliances within the region, which will include more work with ASEAN, APEC and the Pacific Islands Forum.

Despite being headquartered in Fiji, the Forum was not invited to be part of Blinken’s visit.

At the Pacific Leaders meeting, Blinken announced a commitment to deeper economic integration including measures to open market access for agricultural commodities from the islands.

“It’s about connecting our countries together, deepening and stitching together different partnerships and alliances. It’s about building shared prosperity, with new approaches to economic integration, some of which we talked about today with high standards.”

Washington’s new Indo Pacific engagement strategy also includes commitments to develop new approaches to trade, which meet high labour and environmental standards as well as to create more resilient and secure supply chains which are “diverse, open, and predictable.”

Climate change strategy
Regarding climate change, Blinken announced plans to divert substantial portions of the US$150 billion announced at COP26 last year to the Pacific and also plans to make shared investments in decarbonisation and clean energy.

The Indo Pacific strategy announced commitments to “working with allies and partners to develop 2030 and 2050 targets, strategies, plans, and policies consistent with limiting global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius”.

Blinken stated that the US was committed to reducing regional vulnerability to the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation.

On security matters, Blinken said the Pacific could expect power derived from US alliances in other parts of the world to come to the islands.

“The United States is increasingly speaking with one voice with our NATO allies and our G7 partners, when it comes to Indo Pacific matters, you can see the strength of that commitment to the Indo Pacific throughout the past year.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

One of the great failures of Fiji’s climate action campaign has been the missed opportunity of not linking up with arguably the world’s foremost climate crusader and inarguably the biggest star at COP26 — the young Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg.

And the blame for that rests squarely with Fiji’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations, Dr Satyendra Prasad.

As part of the communications team at the UN Climate Summit in New York in September 2019, we put a lot of effort into developing close ties with Greta Thunberg and her team to try to link her with Fiji’s overall campaign and benefit from her immense appeal with young people the world over, including Fiji.

One of our team members spent several weeks getting close to the Thunberg camp with a view to setting up a meeting and photo call between her and Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama — the former COP23 president — and Thunberg’s people were keen for this to proceed.

A time and place were set — in the forecourt of the UN headquarters building by the East River– and everything was set to proceed.

But then on the eve of the meeting, Satyendra Prasad used his influence with the Prime Minister to shut it down.

We sat there stunned as he dismissively said: “We don’t need Greta Thunberg. We have our own youth climate champions.”

While that was true, Thunberg was already a global star whose celebrity could have added lustre to our young Fijian campaigners and Fiji’s overall campaign. But Dr Prasad ( the “Dr” is a PhD in sociology) had other ideas and we were forced to go back to Thunberg’s people with an apology and the excuse that Voreqe Bainimarama didn’t have time in his busy schedule to meet her.

He did but she wasn’t important enough for the PM or Dr Prasad.

A lost opportunity that ought to niggle both of them at COP26 now that Greta Thunberg is an even bigger star and bigger than either of them will ever be.

But as strangers to shame — and with barely a passing acquaintance with self awareness — don’t bet on it.

Australian-Fijian journalist Graham Davis publishes the blog Grubsheet Feejee as a commentary on the national interest; the strengthening of Fiji’s ties with democracies; upholding equal rights for all citizens; government that is genuinely transparent and free of corruption and nepotism; and upholding Fiji’s service to the world in climate and oceans advocacy and UN Peacekeeping. He was a member of the Fiji government’s climate delegation at COP23.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz