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International bilateral partnerships

Climate change is a global challenge and requires an international response to delay it. Bilateral international partnerships play an important part of this response to bring about the exchange of research and ideas, and collaboration on programmes and new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

These partnerships are in addition to New Zealand’s participation in the multilateral agreement under the Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

New Zealand has established a climate change partnership with the United States to enhance dialogue and practical cooperation on climate change issues.  The partnership was launched on 25 October 2002 with the first projects for the partnership announced on 25 July 2003. The projects are in nine priority areas:

  • climate change science
  • technology development
  • registries
  • agricultural emissions abatement
  • engagement with business
  • cooperation with developing countries
  • climate change research in Antarctica
  • public education initiatives
  • product and process standards.

For more information on the NZ-US partnership see Media release: NZ - U.S. consolidate partnership on climate change.

Since 2003 there have been regular meetings on the partnership held alternately in the United States and in New Zealand, providing the opportunity for face-to-face meetings between scientists from both countries, to update and develop new projects and to report on progress. See http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Media-and-publications/Media/0-NZ-US-climate-change-18-sept-08.php for a Joint Statement by New Zealand and the United States following the Fifth Meeting under the US/New Zealand Bilateral Climate Change Partnership.

A climate change partnership between Australia and New Zealand was announced on 7 July 2003. This partnership is developed around five themes:

  • agricultural emissions abatement
  • business and local government engagement
  • working with Pacific Island countries to address regional challenges posed by climate change
  • energy efficiency
  • climate change science and monitoring.

As with the United States partnership, since 2003 there have been regular meetings between the two countries to update and report on progress. 

As well as ongoing projects in each of the thematic areas there have been a number of one-off activities under the Australia/New Zealand partnership themes including the Pew Center Regional Dialogue in April 2005, the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) informal dialogue held in Rotorua in October 2005, co-hosting  the UNFCCC workshop on reducing the emissions from deforestation in developing countries (Cairns  March 2007) an outreach activity in the Pacific (June 2007) on the findings of the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and a workshop in connection with the 3rd Greenhouse Gases and Animal Agriculture Conference (GGAA3) held in Christchurch in November 2007 to discuss the range of mitigation options available to New Zealand and Australian farmers and to develop a consistent approach to how these options are communicated.

There have been some  'tri-lateral' activities involving Australia/New Zealand collaboration with the United States, for example a side-event on Global Climate Observing Systems (GCOS) in the Pacific held during the UNFCCC 10th Conference of the Parties (COP10) December 2004, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and cooperation on other activities in the Pacific.

Last updated: 17 February 2009