New Zealand's Climate Change Minister says his country is doing enough to stand with small Pacific countries on the issue.
James Shaw, who is attending COP25 in Madrid this week. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
James Shaw has arrived in Madrid for the final week of the latest round of UN climate talks, where the rulebook for the Paris Agreement is being ironed out.
Mr Shaw will be touting his government's Zero Carbon Act, but analysis - including one released last week by the Germany-based Climate Action Tracker - suggests that even with the act, New Zealand's performing poorly.
It said the world would be on track for 3°C of warming - double the goal of the Paris Agreement - if it followed New Zealand's current trajectory.
But Mr Shaw said the new law was just part of the parcel, and New Zealand would do more to assuage concerns.
"We are one of the first countries that has placed the 1.5 degrees threshold in our primary legislation but just having it in legislation doesn't itself reduce emissions, we also have to do all the other things that actually reduce emissions."
He was hopeful that the final hurdles could be cleared for an agreement at this year's talks.
Pacific countries are hoping to pressure industrialised nations into taking bold steps to try and address the climate crisis. Photo: UNFCCC/COP25
One of the most contentious issues has been regulations around carbon trading, with Pacific countries calling for strict controls.
Mr Shaw said it was clear it had been tough going.
"I don't think that we should give up though, in fact Paris showed us that we could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. And this is a long process.
"It is going to be a generational shift to move our economies, individually as countries, and as a planet, to a zero carbon future."
However, Mr Shaw said progress had not been fast enough.
*Jamie Tahana travelled to the COP25 in Madrid, Spain with the assistance of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).