Ten takeaways from Auckland climate conference

Wednesday, 10 September 2025

US President Donald Trump was the ultimate bad guy at the Climate Change and Business Conference in Auckland, accused by Britain’s Lord Adair Turner of policies that would add 0.2% to peak global warming.

There wasn’t a lot more love from delegates for the Government, which is seen as lacking ambition to reduce New Zealand’s emissions and doing the minimum needed to keep our trading partners from getting angry.

Here are the 10 takeaways from this week’s conference, which was organised by the Environmental Defence Society.

Trump’s policies are worse than you think

Trump’s policies, and the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement to decarbonise the global economy, may end up adding 0.2 degrees to peak climate change.

“When I think about the impact of President Trump on the global climate, I automatically add, let's say, another 0.2C to where I think we will be by 2100, and maybe even that is a bit optimistic,” Turner, chairperson of the Energy Transitions Commission in the UK, said via video link to the conference.

1.5 degrees is gone, but maybe not forever

“Let's be clear, we're not going to limit global warming to 1.5C. Sadly, that's unachievable, but we can still limit it to well below 2C, if we reinforce our progress to decarbonise our power systems,” Turner said. And doing the right things could see climate heating peak, and then start to fall.

Simon Watts’ colourless address

The Government was accused at the conference of targeting the “minimum viable” amount of emissions reductions that would keep major trading parties happy - and that was not dispelled by Climate Change Minister Simon Watts.

Watts had no new policies to showcase, and emphasised the Government was committed to meeting Paris Agreement pledges, despite coalition partner ACT saying the country should consider pulling out, unless it was reformed.

New Zealand is not on target to meet all its Paris pledges, but Watts would not confirm whether it would buy carbon credits, if it did fall short.

Chris Hipkins has big plans, and they may cost quite a lot

The Labour leader was on home territory among climate activists, and cut a very different figure from the one who spoke briefly at Fieldays earlier this year. He signalled a higher-ambition climate emissions reduction future for the country, if Labour formed the next government. Labour would restore credibility to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), put a price on agricultural methane emissions, and make sure “every community has the support that they need to thrive in a climate-friendly economy”.

That last comment appeared to signal an end to the message from the current government that home owners should not expect bailouts, if their homes become too dangerous to live in as a result of climate change.

Rod Carr is New Zealand’s rock star climate hero

Sandy suit, splendid beard, eloquent orator, the former chair of the Climate Change Commission’s words are supped up by climate-aware people with the enthusiasm that milk is drunk by babies. He even walks the talk by half owning Cog Power, a solar company that’s putting solar panels on the roofs of schools up and down the country.

Sustainable aircraft fuel remains a distant hope

More planes are plying the airways every year, and decarbonising their fuel remains an intractable problem. Airlines all around the world are aiming to replace at least 10% of their fuel with “sustainable aviation fuel” or SAF. Pilots and projects are underway, but there’s a long-long way to go. Air NZ has a programme inviting people booking tickets to pay a voluntary contribution to help Air NZ pay for SAF. In the past year 2.6% of people booking tickets decided to make a voluntary payment.

House insurance is where households are feeling climate change

“It's been said that the climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, and insurance will collapse first,” said Raewyn Peart, policy director at the EDS. There were frequent mentions of people losing affordable insurance on their homes, or not being able to insure their homes at all. But more frequent and costly extreme weather events are being felt in higher insurance premiums, with worse to come. Peart mentioned a Consumer NZ survey that indicated there had been more than 900% inflation in house insurance premiums since 2010.

Yes, one insurance executive responded, but nearly half of the cost of insurance is tax and levies to pay for things like Fire and Emergency, and the Natural Hazards Commission. Loss of insurance can lead to homes being “stranded assets” that no-one will buy, or which they will only buy at a bargain basement price.

We’ve really got to eat less meat

The food at the conference was not terrible, but it was virtuous, and would not have impressed the Silver Fern Farms delegates. British Professor Elizabeth Robinson, acting dean of the Global School of Sustainability at the London School of Economics expressed surprise and horror at the level of current food insecurity in poorer homes in New Zealand, which is similar to food insecurity in poorer homes in Britain. But plant-based diets are better for the planet.

“We need to move more towards plant-based diet,” she said. “That's a hard conversation to have in the UK where we have an important livestock sector. It's a hard conversation, I'm sure, to have in New Zealand.”

Chinese technology may save us all

Wang Xiaolong, China’s ambassador to New Zealand, boasted about China’s technological advances in solar and EVs. “Batteries have fallen to the level where in China already, electric vehicles are cheaper to buy upfront than equivalent size and power internal combustion engines,” Turner said. That would soon be true in the rest of the world, he said.

The world needs global methane and carbon pricing

Voters in New Zealand resent the idea of scaling down, or shutting down farming and industry here to meet national emissions reductions targets only to see that economic activity take place in countries overseas. The European Union certainly doesn’t intend for that to happen. Global agreements, perhaps driven by the European Union, may see a global carbon and methane price emerge, and countries that don’t play ball, would find their exports pay an “adjustment” tax at the border.

The Chinese ambassador warned against “green protectionism”, and so did Simon Tucker, Fonterra’s group director for global external affairs. “In the past 100 years of selling dairy products around the world, sadly one of the ongoing characteristics is one of the most distorted and protectionist global markets on the face of the earth. So, I think there's a real risk here of the temptation governments will face seeing sustainability standards as a new avenue for protectionism to support their domestic producers.”