Why We Must Quit the Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement is a bad deal for New Zealand. It punishes us for already being emissions-efficient, it pressures our politicians to adopt economically destructive policies like the Farming Tax, and it forces us to play by international rules that ignore our national interests.

For all the talk of fairness and global responsibility, the Paris Agreement has left New Zealand in a bind. While other countries have coal power plants to shut down, we started with a clean hydro-based grid and an agriculture sector that feeds tens of millions around the world with some of the lowest emissions per unit of food anywhere. That leaves us no room to meet our targets without shrinking production, hurting rural communities, and making life more expensive for everyone.

Paris is the root of the Farming Tax

We warned that National would keep Labour’s Farming Tax alive, and we were right. Climate Change Minister Simon Watts has confirmed National still plans to price agricultural emissions by 2030. That means all the same consequences we fought against before are still in play: smaller herds, higher costs, lower food security, and higher global emissions as food production moves offshore to less efficient foreign farmers.

The logic is simple: New Zealand farmers are already some of the most efficient in the world. Taxing them won’t reduce global emissions. It just shifts production overseas where emissions are higher.

Even if you think we should reduce emissions, it doesn’t make sense to punish the most efficient producers. The Paris Agreement doesn’t reward success — it locks countries into emission cuts from a fixed starting point, regardless of how efficient they already are. That means New Zealand, which already had low emissions in 2005 for how many people we feed, gets punished, while countries that were heavy polluters get to make easier and cheaper cuts and collect the praise.

Our politicians seem to know all this. And yet they say we have to stick with Paris. Why? The only argument left is that leaving Paris might hurt our trade.

That’s wrong.

Our trade is safe without Paris

Our food exports succeed because of their quality, price, and efficiency, not because we signed a UN agreement:

• The EU free trade agreement mentions the Paris Agreement, but it also commits both sides to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. The EU has increased theirs since signing. That hasn’t killed the deal.
• These agreements are not binary. No one blows them up over technical breaches. If the EU isn’t upholding its end, why should we?
• Any formal dispute would be slow, limited, and unlikely to affect our competitive food exports, which are not the primary target of carbon border taxes.

And even if there was political fallout, our government should be standing up for us and negotiating. That’s what we elect them to do. If they were serious about protecting New Zealand, they could say: we want out of Paris, and we want our trade partners to recognise our contribution through emissions-efficient exports. Instead, we get silence, excuses, and weak leadership.

Our politicians won't make Paris work for us

The Paris Agreement even says (Article 2.1.b) that emissions reductions should be done “in a manner that does not threaten food production.” Millions around the world rely on Kiwi farmers producing our competitive, reliable, high quality, low emissions food.

Our politicians could invoke that clause. They could carve out agricultural emissions. They could propose new targets that reflect our reality. But they don’t and they won't. So long as we stay in Paris, the pressure to meet impossible targets will keep building.

That pressure is already shaping policy. It led to Labour’s impossible pledge to halve emissions by 2030, a promise National is now trying to honour with slightly increased numbers and no viable plan. Climate Change Minister Simon Watts admitted it himself.

The truth is New Zealand has no way to meet its current Paris targets without harming its economy by counterproductively cutting food production.

The only way forward is out

All we can do is less. Less farming, less electricity, less transport, less economic activity, less prosperity, less opportunity. Fewer jobs, fewer people, fewer hospitals and schools, fewer reasons for our kids to stay in New Zealand.

The only way to comply with Paris is poverty and increased global emissions.

The only path forward is to Quit Paris.

Other countries are already pulling back or ignoring their commitments. New Zealand should stop pretending and start defending its interests. Our politicians clearly can’t do it on their own. It’s up to the public to make this a national issue and then an election issue.

Will you join us?

Our signs are going up around the country:

They say what our leaders won’t.

If you have a high-traffic roadside or a place to put up one of our signs, please get in touch.

Click here to contact us about requesting a sign or offer a display site.

Click here to donate to the Quit Paris campaign.

Thank you for standing with us.

The Groundswell NZ Team