In our 2025 State of the Nation speech held in Christchurch, we questioned the logic of the Paris Accord the National Party signed up to in 2015.

National have said they will be doing their best to honour those Paris obligations. If that’s true, up to $22 billion of our hard-earned taxpayers’ money is going offshore.

They say that New Zealand will never send billions of dollars overseas, but if that’s true, why are we remaining signed up to the Paris Accord? Why don’t they answer that question?

It’s just common sense that instead of draining our money offshore, into foreign economies, we invest it in looking after our own environment. 

And New Zealand First is the only party that believes that.

Let’s look at the facts. Around sixty percent of the worlds CO2 emissions come from four countries – China, United States, Russia, and India. New Zealand’s emissions amount to only around 0.17%.

Why are we making a rod for our own backs, punishing our farmers and our taxpayers and our economy, when China or the US could sneeze and produce more CO2 overnight than we do in a year? 

How is that solving the “global climate problems”? The former longest serving Labour Party PM in the UK, Tony Blair, made a similar statement. The world is catching on and we are going to get left behind in crippling debt and a quagmire of regulations on our productive sector if we remain signed up to the Paris Agreement.

We need to stop this nonsense – so why have National, Act and Labour all signed up to this free trade agreement with this clause in it?

New Zealand First is saying we need to get out of the Paris Accord altogether – and we will campaign on this issue in this election.

If other parties have just signed up to the FTA with the Paris Accord in it, they cant then turn around and say they now share New Zealand First’s view.