National MP Scott Simpson attends UN Climate Change Conference

National's Environment spokesperson Scott Simpson recently attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Photo / File

OPINION:

As National’s spokesperson for climate change, I was part of the country’s delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

This is an annual gathering of world leaders to create consensus on how to tackle climate change. Previous conferences have negotiated the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

These conferences are an important building block to ensure nations are working toward the same goal. Climate change isn’t something that we can solve alone; we need partnerships throughout the public and private sectors, and the international community.

Attending the conference in person was a little different from the snippets shown on the news. Instead, it consisted of navigating the halls of a convention centre to meet with politicians, officials, and climate experts from around the world.

It’s an opportunity to hear what is and isn’t working in other countries, and this shared knowledge helps to shape our response to climate change.

National is committed to reducing our emissions, but we don’t support the constant attacks on the agricultural sector and the Government’s plan to reduce beef and sheep farm capacity by 20 per cent.

They openly admit that this would have little impact on total emissions because two-thirds of the reductions in New Zealand would be undone by higher emissions overseas as jobs and production shift offshore. We’re proud that the National-led government signed the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016, and we recognise that reducing agricultural emissions will play a role in meeting our target to be carbon Net Zero by 2050, but we need to work with the sector to find workable solutions.

Authorised by Scott Simpson MP, 614 Pollen St, Thames