Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Nathan Cooper: Waikato University Environmental Law professor on whether NZ should remain in the Paris Agreement

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Nathan Cooper: Waikato University Environmental Law professor on whether NZ should remain in the Paris Agreement · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right's New Zealand's future involvement in the Paris Agreement is
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: up in the air. David Seymour has hinted that ACT
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: may campaign on leaving the accord after the twenty twenty
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: six election. Now, Donald Trump's already pulled the United States
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: from the scheme in his Fortnight of Action, and there's
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: concerned that other big admitters could pack their bags too.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Talks it up to fifty percent of the people. It
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: might be countries might be leaving now. The Associate Professor
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of Environmental Law at the University of Wayhadow is doctor
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Nathan John Cooper, who joins her now Hella.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Nathan Kyoda, good morning.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Is the whole agreement in trouble with so many people
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: saying we're pulling out, Well.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I think that's premature. One of the great successes of
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: the Paris Agreement was just how many countries signed up,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: and so while while obviously the US has signaled that
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: it's beginning to withdraw, I think the vast majority of
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: countries are going to remain in that framework for this
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: civil future.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: But if the bigger misters leave, you know, if the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: US leaves as it already has, if China and India
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: decide to SCARPA, why should a little old New Zealand stay.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't think China, India or Russia are likely
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: to leave. However, I think climate change, which obviously is
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the big challenge that the Paris Agreement is there to
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: respond to. It's a global challenge, and so it really
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: doesn't make sense for individual countries to move away from
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: a framework that pulls together our contributions, coordinates things, monitors
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: them in favor of just some sort of independent action.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: But it's a bit to say that a lot of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: people have fallen out of the Paris Climate Accords because
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of the mechanisms used to combec climate change, that they
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: feel theoretical, that they don't feel like they're actually going
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to make any change, and they're expensive.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Sure, there's no doubt that some of the action that's
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: required is expensive, and it's inconvenient as we transition towards
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: sort of low carbon options. That's all pretty inconvenient, But
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, that needs to be
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: balanced against the size of the problem that's being faced.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: The problem.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I know the problem, but does the Climate Accords the solution?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Are they working? Have we seen any of these mechanisms work.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I suppose it depends what you mean by work. Ultimately,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: the Paris agreement's there to try to strengthen global response
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: to climate change, principally by limiting global average temperature rise. Now,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: we saw in twenty twenty four that actually over the
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: course of that year, the average temperature rise compared to
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: perior industrial levels was around about that one point five degrees,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: which has always been the sort of first Paris Paris target.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: So in that respect, the world is warming, it's warming
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: quicker than we wanted to, and so you could say
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: that it's not succeeding. But if we look a little
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: bit deeper as to why maybe there's less success under
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: the Paris Agreement than we were of liked, a lot
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of it is that commitments are made by countries, but
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: that we don't actually follow through with those commitments, so.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: In which case it doesn't work. So people it's what
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: people will say is it's virtue signaling. We go to
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: a meeting, we say big stuff, we do nothing, So
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: what's the point.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Sure, I think there's a long way between doing everything
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: that's required and the alternatives doing nothing. So countries are
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: stepping up and it's been encouraging to see recently that
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: some countries newly announced nationally determined contributions they're kind of
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: pledged for the next round of emissions reductions have been
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: pretty ambitious. Unfortunately, I don't think New Zealand's own pledge
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: has been as ambitious as it could have been. But
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: there's definitely a big catorry. No, but there's definitely quite
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: a lot of examples there as to how the Paris
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Agreement is encouraging countries to step up in a way
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: that we've never seen before. I mean, this is the biggest,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: it's the biggest climate agreement, is the biggest international treaty
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: that we've seen.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: All Right, Doctor Nathan John Cooper, I thank you for
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: your time, Associate Professor of Environmental Law, University of Waykata Day.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 4:23
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• 4:26
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