Does New Zealand have a role to play in Pacific climate change?

Tonga’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his wife Amanda at a local school in Tonga.
photo: RNZ/Annique Smith

analyze – How big a role New Zealand actually plays in Pacific climate finance is a lingering question following the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum.

This week’s flagship event was the 53rd Forum and the first attended by Christopher Luxon, and while New Zealand played a key role at the summit, it took a backseat to the issue of new climate and disaster recovery funds.

The PRF (Pacific Resilience Fund) is the first Pacific-led climate and disaster resilience financing fund with an initial target of $500 million capitalization by January 1, 2026, and a long-term target of $1.5 billion capitalization.

Australia, Saudi Arabia, China and the United States have pledged millions of dollars to the fund and urged the forum’s dialogue partners to contribute to ensure the goals are met.

New Zealand will make a commitment soon, but Luxon said the government wanted to better understand how the facility would work before committing money.

“We’ve made a lot of progress. We’re very supportive of it. We just want to make sure we have clarity on how the fund will work, and then we’ll have more to say soon.”

It sounds reasonable, but time is of the essence when it comes to climate change in the Pacific, and New Zealand may already be falling behind.

The Pacific Climate Group released a report this week that found New Zealand’s existing climate finance commitments of $325 million a year were well below its fair share of an estimated $558 million to $953 million a year based on the country’s emissions.

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While Luxembourg stressed that climate aid funding would remain under the spending priorities he implemented, the coalition government’s cuts have also raised doubts about whether current funding levels are sustainable.

In addition to the US dollar, the alliance It is widely believed that this will cause the country to backslide on climate action; This puts New Zealand’s ability to achieve its climate targets at risk.

Luxon was confident and convincing when he spoke about the government’s move to restart oil and gas exploration; he clearly laid out the case for a reversal of the energy crisis in a way that will resonate with New Zealand voters.

While Pacific leaders may not have personally raised the policy with him, it is undoubtedly a step backwards for climate mitigation, with government analysis estimating that reversing the ban on oil and gas exploration would This will result in an extra year of emissions By 2050.

2024 PIF “family portrait”.
photo: RNZ/Annique Smith

Foreign Minister Winston Peters is not helping the government’s climate change message. Questioning the scientific consensus on climate science Will leave Tonga this week.

Luxon was quick to clarify that the two agree on global warming, but that this was an unnecessary and unhelpful distraction.

One tangible outcome of this year’s forum was the announcement of a new Pacific Policing Initiative, which will see the establishment of a police training facility in Brisbane and a support team that can be deployed across the region.

It is overshadowed by the region’s geostrategic competition After the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation captured the US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the show that the United States “got out of the way”, and the latter joked about “splitting it evenly”.

Mr Albanese was embarrassed and later criticised RNZ for the ethics of recording so-called “private conversations”.

But later in the day he embarrassed his Pacific counterparts; he was late for a family photo while many of the older Pacific Islands Forum leaders waited in the hot sun.

An abandoned resort destroyed by the tsunami, photographed during the forum.
photo: RNZ/Annique Smith

The people of Tonga pulled out all the stops to host this year’s forum, hoping the event will inject money into the Tongan economy which has been struggling since the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hungahapai volcano.

Driving around the island, you can still see the devastation caused by the tsunami: debris hanging from power lines, slabs of concrete where houses once were, and an abandoned luxury resort on the shoreline.

It is a reminder of how badly Pacific nations face the impacts of natural disasters, severe weather and climate change.