Climate denial is an insult to the Pacific - Labour

Vaovasamanaia Winston Peters' time at the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Tonga is over as the Deputy Prime Minister headed home on Tuesday.

His departure signalled Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's arrival for his first PIF summit.

But Peters' farewell speech in Nuku'alofa, hours before his flight, has not been received well by many people.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs downplayed the impact of emissions on climate change, casting doubt over whether Aotearoa would continue to offer any generous climate finance when the current Budget runs out next year.

"Do I believe in climate change? The answer is for thousands and thousands and thousands of years there has been climate change," he said.

Watch TV journalist Patrick Gower's interview on his all-new documentary about climate change.

He added that a severe storm, which killed 11 people in New Zealand in February 2023, was no different from those in years gone by.

"Cyclone Gabrielle happened in the 30s in the Hawke's Bay. The biggest tsunami in recent times was in 1968. There's always climate change.

"There have been massive climate changes down over (millennia). There was a mini-ice age in the 1600s. We all understand that.

"Our job is to build as much as we can resilience against it whilst we're transitioning to a new age.

"And that's why our fuel supply, our energy supplies in New Zealand, now in a crisis, has got to be surmounted. We cannot economically help these people if our economy is not sustained as well."

Just hours earlier, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for more climate action and warned that the fate of the Pacific depended on a global effort to reduce emissions.

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Guterres issued a "global SOS to Save Our Seas" from rising sea levels, calling it a "crisis entirely of humanity's making" and a "worldwide catastrophe putting this Pacific paradise in peril".

"Pacific Island nations are in grave danger. Relative sea levels in the Southwestern Pacific have risen even more than the global average. But what happens here doesn’t end here.

"Surging seas are coming for us all, threatening coastal areas around the world. The world must look to the Pacific and listen to the science. If we save the Pacific, we also save ourselves," Guterres said.

Peters' comments have been seen by many as going against the advocacy of Guterres and other Pacific leaders in Tonga this week.

The Labour Party has taken a swipe at the country's top diplomat, saying Peters’ climate denialism at the Pacific Islands Forum is an embarrassing new low.

“I can’t believe that in 2024 we’re still dealing with climate deniers when there is so much overwhelming evidence that burning fossil fuels and other human activities are warming our world,” Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said in a statement.

Vaovasamanaia Winston Peters has been criticised by Labour Leader Chris Hipkins over the Deputy Prime Minister's comments on climate change. Photo/file

“To imply to Pacific leaders that changes to the climate we’re experiencing are no cause for alarm is an insult to those fighting to save their islands from rising seas.

“It serves his pro-pollution agenda to distance himself from the reality of the human-induced climate crisis.

“Pacific nations have repeatedly said that the biggest threat to their security and survival is climate change, which has brought an increasing number of hurricanes and extreme weather, rising seas, ocean acidification, and other impacts that threaten lives, homes, and food sources.

“The best way to build resilience to the climate crisis is to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause the problem. We cannot adapt our way out of the crisis without reducing emissions.

“There is no seawall high enough to save small low-lying nations from runaway climate change,” Hipkins said.

The forum leaders' meeting ends on Friday.

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