Winston Peters defends climate change comments

NZ First leader Winston Peters pushed back against criticism of his statements about climate change, but says he does believe humans had a role in causing climate change.

With Peters standing in for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who flew to Tonga for the second half of the Pacific Island Forum on Tuesday, Labour's leader Chris Hipkins challenged the deputy PM on on whether climate change was - as UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the forum - a crisis entirely of humanity's making.

"Or is that crisis only as a result of long-standing weather patterns as implied by Winston Peters to Pacific leaders at the same meeting," Hipkins asked.

"The reality is both are contributory," Peters responded.

"Everyone knows that. For example the advent of the volcano in Tonga was 10 times stronger in terms of climate change than anyone contemplated. And to say that's of no matter is just to ignore facts. But both statements are correct."

Hipkins also resurrected comments Peters made during the election campaign about humanity's contribution to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere being 3 percent - a figure disputed by NIWA scientists who said it was about 33 percent.

"With the greatest respect I can't find anyone who agrees with NIWA on that worldwide," Peters told Parliament on Wednesday.

Hipkins persisted.

"Why does the prime minister believe that it's okay for the minister of foreign affairs to travel to the Pacific and question the science of climate change in front of leaders who in some cases are finding their countries literally sinking into the ocean?" he asked.

"Because nothing of the sort is happening," Peters responded. "When someone is giving an interview and makes a statement it has to be seen in its totality, not just grab one little phrase, a few words, and think 'I'll make a home run of that'."

Hipkins asked if Peters agreed with his earlier statements that "the biggest tsunami in recent times was 1968, there's always climate change", if so does he think that tsunamis are primarily caused by climate change, or earthquakes?"

Peters: "I don't pretend, no one pretends here to be a scientist on this matter. But one has to listen to the science. And the second thing is it can be caused by a volcano, it can be caused by an earthquake. That's why we've got the dart buoys out there."

He also said imaging from space showed about 25 percent of Pacific islands were rising out of the sea, "but of course they [the opposition] wouldn't want to know that, would they".

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick continued to question Peters on Wednesday.

"Does the prime minister accept the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change?"

"The reality is we're doing our best to bring ourselves up to date on the science on these matters," he said. "You can laugh and scoff, but you know, when the Māori were in Christchurch before European times they never lived where the earthquake happened, we ignore them at our peril. But here she is thinking that's a laughing matter. And the same was with the Pacific Islands, down through millennium they understood there are times of danger with climate change and they never lived in the low part of the country.

"To turn that into some kind of climate denial argument is ridiculous."

Swarbrick asked if Peters agreed with former Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga, "who said when speaking about this government's planned reversal of the oil and gas ban 'Don't forget that whatever you're going to do is going to increase greenhouse gas emissions, which is going to sink the islands of Tuvalu and kill the people'."

Peters responded that the current prime minister and finance minister of Tuvalu "expressed their gratitude to New Zealand for the money we've set aside in their present budget for climate change resilience and long term survival of that country".

Questioned about Peters' comments in Tonga, Luxon backed his deputy.

"I'm not convinced that's what he said if you read through the full subtext of his remarks, but what I'd say to you is there's no doubt both Winston Peters and myself understand the threat that climate change represents in the region and around the world quite frankly."

Peters was later asked if he believed humans played a role in climate change.

"Well of course," he said. "When has anybody ever denied it? But I was trying to make the point that some people don't seem to understand that when they think that they're the only ones in any generation that's ever been concerned about it."

Peters' comments in Tonga

Peters had been at the forum in Tonga on Tuesday, and gave a cryptic response when reporters asked if he believed in climate change.

"Do I believe in climate change? Downstream for thousands and thousands and thousands of years there's been climate change. I mean Cyclone Gabrielle['s equivalent] happened in the '30s in the Hawke's Bay, the biggest tsunami in recent times was in 1968. There's always climate change, our job is to build as much as we can, resilience against it and whilst we're transitioning to a new age," he said.

"What I'm saying to you was there's been massive changes down over the millennium, I mean there was a mini ice age in the 1600s, we all understand that, so let's not panic and say that we can't get on top of it. Our job is to ensure that we've got an international solution that helps us towards that.

"One of the things that's going to be critical in that - if we're going to help anyone with all the other - what I might call tsunamis - coming their way such as the health tsunami, food supply tsunami, employment and economic tsunami, is that we have a sound economy ourselves and play our role."

He had pushed back also at questions about government action on the use of fossil fuels, given the recent electricity shortage and power price spikes in New Zealand.

"Every population I know is responsible for the use of fossil fuels, even small populations as a result of delivery of their power systems, diesel, multiple of supplies that have come to them all have a fossil fuel connection. So to say that some countries are responsible and some are not is not in my view correct.

"Percentage-wise, in terms of numbers, perhaps. But all countries that are using modern, anything that's modern, are responsible for the change in the fossil fuel needs. But we're in a transition and gas is understood to be one of the better ways to do that in terms of the transition and we're not ready in New Zealand. Worse than that, we've exposed ourselves to be an economy that could be collapsed in the space of six weeks because of our lack of supply. This is a crisis."

He said New Zealand had compartmentalised climate-related offshore aid as early as 2007 and done so much more from 2018 onwards.

"In this case, are we pulling our weight, most definitely we are."