Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says government 'not here to chase emissions reduction as the end goal. Our goal is growth in this economy and growth in this country'

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the Government won’t be sending billions of dollars overseas to meet New Zealand’s targets under the Paris Agreement.

Under the Paris Agreement, every country sets out its own Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) - this is to show the contributions countries will make towards delivering on the 2015 Paris Agreement climate goals. The obligations are to limit global warming to “well below 2 °C” and attempt to keep it to 1.5 °C.

Countries can transfer carbon credits earned from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to help other countries meet their climate targets.

A recently released Treasury paper called New Zealand’s Nationally Determined Contributions - Potential Fiscal Costs Associated with Offshore Mitigation, said when it came to the country's 2030 goal, "analysis shows that there could be significant fiscal costs associated with purchases of offshore mitigation."

"Under the scenarios examined, possible costs are modelled at between $4.4 billion to $5.0 billion."

More money may also be needed for NZ to meet its 2035 goals - with Treasury estimating offshore mitigation costs between $200 million and $1.6 billion depending on the scenarios.

'Show us the money'

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick sees this as Treasury putting a price tag on the Government's climate inaction. 

“The Government keeps saying they will meet the Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement. We have known for about a decade doing that will require offshore mitigation, but the size of that offshore cost depends on how much we do onshore," Swarbrick said.

“This Government has robbed us all of investment in local climate action, which could also have reduced the cost of living and built our resilience. Instead, they’ve chosen to fund new fossil fuels and increased the price we’ve got to pay other countries to do the job we could do here.” 

Swarbrick also called out Finance Minister Nicola Willis, who has previously said she did not believe it was in the best interests of New Zealanders to send billions of dollars offshore.

"It's time for Nicola Willis to be honest. If the Government is committed to meeting our NDC, they need to show us the money."

“If the Government is instead secretly planning on not meeting our NDC, then they need to be honest about that," Swarbrick said.

"Climate commitments are baked into our free trade agreements with the United Kingdom and the European Union. If Luxon walks away from that 2030 target, he puts our trading relationships and exporters' market access on the line too.”

'Not here to chase emissions reduction as the end goal'

Speaking to reporters on Thursday at Fieldays in Hamilton, Luxon said: "I want to be clear, we're not here to chase emissions reduction as the end goal. Our goal is growth in this economy and growth in this country."

“We do not have the luxury to turn off growth, which ends up meaning that people don’t have incomes and people lose jobs. That's not happening.”

“We will do everything we can around NDC 2030," Luxon said.

He said NZ had realigned to its domestic goal of net zero 2050. “We’re making good progress on that … We are focused on growth and as a result we can actually grow and also be more sustainable.”

Luxon said he thought when former Minister for Climate Change James Shaw and former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern went off and set a target for 2030, “they got disconnected” from the country’s domestic track when it comes to emissions reduction.

“That wasn't right and that wasn't fair. Having said that, we'll do everything we can but I'm just acknowledging that we ain't sending billions of dollars offshore, and we're not going to make this country poorer as a consequence of it.”

Coalition partner, the ACT Party, has been outspoken about the Paris Agreement with leader David Seymour saying: “Paris needs to change, or New Zealand needs to leave.” And on Wednesday, ACT released its climate policy which called things like a revisit of the country’s Emissions Reduction Plans and a proposal for a “split gas” emissions target.

Luxon has previously made it clear that New Zealand would not be leaving the Paris Agreement and he reiterated this on Thursday.

“We believe very strongly that actually New Zealand coming out of [the] Paris [Agreement] will disadvantage us because essentially other countries that we compete with in primary sectors will use that as an excuse to kick our products off shelves across supermarkets around the world," he said.

"It makes sense for us to be in [the] Paris [Agreement]."