Nathan Cooper: Waikato University Environmental Law professor on whether NZ should remain in the Paris Agreement

An environmental law professor says it wouldn't make sense to pull out of the Paris Agreement.  

Speaking to The Country, ACT Leader David Seymour's floated the idea of New Zealand leaving the agreement, suggesting it appears half the world is leaving. 

It follows US President Donald Trump pulling the United States from the climate deal. 

Waikato University's Dr Nathan Cooper told Andrew Dickens that while the US is leaving, other big players are likely to stay. 

He says climate change, which is what the Paris Agreement is there to respond to, is a global challenge. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right's New Zealand's future involvement in the Paris Agreement is
up in the air. David Seymour has hinted that ACT
may campaign on leaving the accord after the twenty twenty
six election. Now, Donald Trump's already pulled the United States
from the scheme in his Fortnight of Action, and there's
concerned that other big admitters could pack their bags too.
Talks it up to fifty percent of the people. It
might be countries might be leaving now. The Associate Professor

(00:22):
of Environmental Law at the University of Wayhadow is doctor
Nathan John Cooper, who joins her now Hella.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Nathan Kyoda, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Is the whole agreement in trouble with so many people
saying we're pulling out, Well.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
I think that's premature. One of the great successes of
the Paris Agreement was just how many countries signed up,
and so while while obviously the US has signaled that
it's beginning to withdraw, I think the vast majority of
countries are going to remain in that framework for this
civil future.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
But if the bigger misters leave, you know, if the
US leaves as it already has, if China and India
decide to SCARPA, why should a little old New Zealand stay.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, I don't think China, India or Russia are likely
to leave. However, I think climate change, which obviously is
the big challenge that the Paris Agreement is there to
respond to. It's a global challenge, and so it really
doesn't make sense for individual countries to move away from

(01:25):
a framework that pulls together our contributions, coordinates things, monitors
them in favor of just some sort of independent action.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
But it's a bit to say that a lot of
people have fallen out of the Paris Climate Accords because
of the mechanisms used to combec climate change, that they
feel theoretical, that they don't feel like they're actually going
to make any change, and they're expensive.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Sure, there's no doubt that some of the action that's
required is expensive, and it's inconvenient as we transition towards
sort of low carbon options. That's all pretty inconvenient, But
at the end of the day, that needs to be
balanced against the size of the problem that's being faced.

(02:09):
The problem.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
I know the problem, but does the Climate Accords the solution?
Are they working? Have we seen any of these mechanisms work.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
I suppose it depends what you mean by work. Ultimately,
the Paris agreement's there to try to strengthen global response
to climate change, principally by limiting global average temperature rise. Now,
we saw in twenty twenty four that actually over the
course of that year, the average temperature rise compared to
perior industrial levels was around about that one point five degrees,
which has always been the sort of first Paris Paris target.

(02:45):
So in that respect, the world is warming, it's warming
quicker than we wanted to, and so you could say
that it's not succeeding. But if we look a little
bit deeper as to why maybe there's less success under
the Paris Agreement than we were of liked, a lot
of it is that commitments are made by countries, but
that we don't actually follow through with those commitments, so.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
In which case it doesn't work. So people it's what
people will say is it's virtue signaling. We go to
a meeting, we say big stuff, we do nothing, So
what's the point.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Sure, I think there's a long way between doing everything
that's required and the alternatives doing nothing. So countries are
stepping up and it's been encouraging to see recently that
some countries newly announced nationally determined contributions they're kind of
pledged for the next round of emissions reductions have been

(03:42):
pretty ambitious. Unfortunately, I don't think New Zealand's own pledge
has been as ambitious as it could have been. But
there's definitely a big catorry. No, but there's definitely quite
a lot of examples there as to how the Paris
Agreement is encouraging countries to step up in a way

(04:04):
that we've never seen before. I mean, this is the biggest,
it's the biggest climate agreement, is the biggest international treaty
that we've seen.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
All Right, Doctor Nathan John Cooper, I thank you for
your time, Associate Professor of Environmental Law, University of Waykata Day.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
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