95bFM Green Party’s James Shaw: Proposed international legal obligations will hold countries accountable on climate action
5 April, 2023
Interview by Emilia Sullivan, adapted by Georgi Stirling
Green party co-leader and minister for climate change, James Shaw, says there is still a lot more work to be done to meet international climate obligations. Photo: The Green Party of Aotearoa.
Last week, the United Nations general assembly voted to adopt a resolution to clarify what international legal obligations are expected of countries in regards to climate change.
Green party co-leader and minister for climate change, James Shaw, told Emilia Sullivan on 95bFM’s The Wire that Aotearoa supported Vanuatu in putting the proposal up to the United Nations, and helped with its progression to the International Court of Justice.
Shaw described the resolution as a very significant step.
“I think it's great that we are starting to see moves, in international law, to really try to clarify what it is that countries should be doing to reduce emissions in line with the targets in the Paris Agreement."
Although it will take some time for the matter to work its way through the International Court of Justice, Shaw remained hopeful that it will make it harder for countries to neglect their obligations to climate change.
This announcement comes after data released by Stats NZ on Tuesday revealed that Aotearoa’s total greenhouse gas emissions have fallen to their lowest levels in eight years.
Shaw said this statistic was promising and showed that the policies the government have implemented over the last five and a half years are beginning to work.
But he argued there is still a lot more work to be done to meet Aotearoa's climate goals.
“We really need to see that turn into a trend where our emissions fall every single year until we hit net zero.”
Last week, the government also granted an offshore oil and gas exploration permit to oil company Greymouth Petroleum.
Shaw found this decision to be disappointing, but clarified that this particular application was already in the system prior to the 2018 decision to stop all future exploration for oil and gas.
“The courts have found that because this application predated the government's decision, it has to be allowed to go ahead.”
Shaw said he has repeatedly voiced his concerns that exploring new gas and oil reserves is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.
“It is completely inconsistent with where we need to go as a country and as a planet.”
Under the Paris Agreement in 2015, Aotearoa and other nations agreed to engage in climate actions that keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius — a threshold scientists believe is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
