Speech to the United Nations Climate Change Conference

Mr President,
Good afternoon. I want to first of all thank the Government of Canada for their impeccable arrangements for this conference, and for the leadership shown by Stephane Dion in guiding our deliberations.

For New Zealand, this conference has to consider some crucial questions. It’s time to look at where we are now and where we want to go in the future.

We have now moved beyond a debate about whether climate change exists. There is now widespread recognition that climate change is a serious challenge. It affects all of us.

New Zealand has already had a foretaste of what climate change will look like. In the past year we have had two extreme weather events that caused considerable flooding and property damage. Other parts of our country have experienced droughts. There are predictions that our frequency of drought might increase fourfold by 2050. A one in 20 year drought is already crippling. The prospect of that becoming a one in five year event is, to mix metaphors, chilling.

We recognise that climate change is a serious challenge for New Zealand, particularly since our economy depends heavily on agricultural production. We are also acutely aware of the significant threat global warming poses for our neighbours in the South Pacific, including the many small island developing states that are most vulnerable to its impact.

New Zealand recognises the significant challenges climate change poses for developing countries. New Zealand joined others in Marrakech in making a voluntary financial commitment to assist developing countries meet these challenges. I can confirm that New Zealand has allocated funding in this years budget to meet our annual share of this $410 million commitment. A major part of New Zealand’s share of this funding will be directed to our Pacific partners through our Overseas Development Assistance Programme. We congratulate our Pacific partners on the recent adoption of the Pacific Island Framework for Action on Climate Change 2006-2015 and look forward to the opportunities this will bring to further focus our assistance.

We would also like to announce that this year, as part of our voluntary commitment, New Zealand will contribute NZ$1.8 million to the Least Developed Country Fund.

Mr President, improving the institutional machinery to allow New Zealand and others to provide support for developing countries should be one key outcome from this meeting. In particular, New Zealand would support practical suggestions to make the Clean Development Mechanism fully effective. The CDM is an important tool to allow us all to work together to build a collective response and action to climate change.

This conference also is dealing with a full agenda of other issues. Adopting a raft of decisions to give effect to the Marrakesh Accords has been a substantive result for the Montreal conference, allowing implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.

But the big issue we need to be talking about is, where do we go from here? There have been some significant developments since COP10 in Buenos Aires. The entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol is an important step forward in international efforts to deal with climate change. New Zealand is committed to addressing climate change and to meeting its Kyoto commitments, despite facing very real challenges and costs in doing so.

It is clear there are no easy solutions for any of us. Let me say quite frankly that, while New Zealand fully intends to live up to its Kyoto commitments, we are not finding it as easy to reduce emissions as we would like. As well as domestic mitigation we are having to look at the options available to us, including the Protocol’s flexibility mechanisms. One problem that is unique to New Zealand, at least among Annex 1 countries, is how to deal with non-carbon dioxide emissions from agriculture. Non-carbon dioxide emissions amount to almost 50% of our total emissions. There may be technology to deal with emissions from the industrial and energy sectors, but we have not yet found ways to stop cows and sheep from doing what comes naturally.

Although we have yet to find a way to deal with emissions from agriculture, the same natural advantage New Zealand has in agricultural production also means that we can grow trees very efficiently. A key element in New Zealand’s strategy for meeting our commitments under Kyoto is the use of sustainably managed planted forests to act as carbon sinks. On a more global scale we should also be looking at ways to encourage the retention, regeneration and growth of forestry, for all of our mutual benefit. We support the proposal put forward by Papua New Guinea and welcome the decision that it will be considered in detail.

As we all know, the Protocol is only one step on a long road. Yes, Kyoto is a major milestone. But there is much further still to go.

If we are serious about stopping climate change, then we have to recognise that this is a global problem and it needs a global solution. There is simply no other way. All countries have to contribute as best they can to a common effort. Without broad and balanced support, and in particular the participation of all major emitters, attempts to tackle climate change will be inadequate and insufficient.

Nor is there a single solution to a problem of this magnitude. We are going to need many different tools if we are to fix an overheating planet. We should not rule out any options. I believe that in looking at action beyond 2012 we should pursue a multi-tracked approach, one that includes ways of building on the Kyoto mechanisms, sectoral cooperation, and technology development and transfer.

As far as New Zealand is concerned, we have an open mind about what a future framework for long term cooperative action might look like. But its key features are already well known. We want a regime that will be:

·effective in delivering global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions;
·economically and technologically feasible
·fair and equitable to all countries
·produce cost-efficient results.

A framework that meets all these tests will be something we can all unite upon.

So let us agree here in Montreal on a pathway that will lead us forward to a truly global effort to deal with climate change. Let us agree to work together frankly, cooperatively, with open minds, without preconceptions and preconditions.

I believe that if human beings work together, there is virtually nothing we cannot achieve. But if we cannot even talk with each other, then we can achieve nothing.

Let me leave with a thought from a great thinker and scientist, Albert Einstein. “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

May we collectively find that sort of wisdom to guide our discussions here in Montreal.

Thank you.