Cam Slater: Luxon Wets Himself Again as Seymour Calls to Ditch the Paris Farce

David Seymour has it spot on, as usual. The ACT leader is pushing for New Zealand to pull out of the Paris Agreement unless it is serious overhauled to allow for realistic emissions targets. He says the deal is broken, with net-zero goals that ignore science and our country’s realities. Those targets are hammering households, businesses and farmers, forcing good people off the land, gutting regions and jacking up prices for food, power and everything else we make. Seymour wants reform, a revisit of our emissions plans and a split-gas approach like Uruguay uses for methane. Fair call, I say.

But then there’s Christopher Luxon, our prime minister, playing the role of the eternal wet blanket. National says no to ditching Paris, full stop. Luxon reckons leaving would hurt our farmers, with competitors swooping in to replace our products. He points to the coalition’s move to yank farming out of the Emissions Trading Scheme, with a separate pricing system planned for 2030 instead of the old Labour deadline of 2025. Even NZ First has piped up before, saying the agreement should be put out to pasture. Yet Luxon clings on, his suit pants damp from standing in woke puddles for too long and prostrating himself before the climate gods.

Luxon is wrong on this: wet and woke as ever. We’re beggaring our nation here, handing over hard-earned tax dollars to some unelected quango to fritter away on God knows what. All based on the false premise and the lies of the so-called climate change crisis. It’s not even a top ten issue for voters but Luxon is willing to keep chucking our money away for no discernible benefit.

Mike Hosking nails it in his latest piece too. He calls the Paris Accord well-intentioned but futile: a total bust. Banks are still pumping trillions into oil and gas while green projects get scraps, and all those COP meetings amount to hot air and broken promises. Hosking questions why we keep funding this mess, with countries bailing out or never signing up in the first place. He echoes Seymour’s skepticism, suggesting we rethink our 2050 targets, since the whole thing doesn’t add up anymore. Spot on, Mike. Time to stop the rot, the expense and the energy wasted on vain hopes.

New Zealand signed up to this in 2016 under a National-led Government, committing to limit warming below two degrees Celsius. It’s a feel-good exercise that’s doing far more harm than good. Seymour is right to demand change or walk away. Luxon needs to dry off, grow a spine and put Kiwis first instead of bowing to international virtue-signalling. If we don’t, we’ll keep paying the price for a crisis that isn’t what they claim it is.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the GoodOil - where this article was sourced.