New Zealand’s mixed messaging on climate change is not going unnoticed at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting, Prof Robert Patman says.

This week, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have both separately attended the 55th annual gathering of the heads of the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), this year being held in the Micronesian island nation, Palau.

But contrary stances on the Paris Climate Accord, held by the two men who are leaders of the National Party and New Zealand First, respectively, are being noted by countries including island nations who view climate change as their top security threat, University of Otago international relations specialist Prof Patman says.

“That is unlikely to go down well with many countries whose physical existence is threatened by rising sea levels in the Pacific Island nations region,” Prof Patman told Otago Daily Times’ Global Insight.

Winston Peters and Christopher Luxon's different song sheets over the Paris climate agreement has foreign policy implications, Prof Robert Patman says. Image: RNZ

In the lead-up to the Palau gathering, which has also attracted representatives from the United States and China, the two New Zealand politicians have expressed different views on the seminal, international climate change agreement.

Luxon has said he will not back away from the Paris accord and its commitments to reducing climate change impacts. Peters has said New Zealand should follow the US lead and withdraw from the agreement.

 

That sends a confusing message, particularly to fellow Pacific Island states, Prof Patman says.

“We share people-to-people contacts, more than 60% of our overseas aid goes there, and yet the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister of the current coalition government cannot agree on the policy that matters most to the Pacific Island nations.

"It's not the most glorious moment in New Zealand's foreign policy.”

He says etiquette and politeness at the PIF gathering would spare Luxon and Peters being publicly embarrassed on the matter, but the lack of coherence is being noticed.

“So it's not a good look for this country.”

It also reveals deeper foreign policy problems, Prof Patman says.

"If we cannot come up with a coherent position on a key issue to the Pacific Islands, which is . . . in our backyard. It doesn't bode well for our overall foreign policy towards the rest of the world.”

On this episode of Global Insight, Prof Patman also outlines the importance of the PIF leaders meeting, discusses the role geopolitical heavyweights China and the US are playing in the region, and assesses New Zealand’s relationship with its Pacific Island neighbours.