Climate Change Minister Simon Watts. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Officials warned the government that reneging on climate commitments could have a domino effect and give bigger countries, like China, an excuse to do less.
The advice was mistakenly released under the Official Information Act by the Ministry for the Environment (MFE).
MFE and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) have sought to retrospectively redact the information.
The sensitive information was contained in a briefing paper released under the OIA in April.
The paper warned that if the government decided not to meet New Zealand's first target under the Paris Agreement, it could impact a "delicate" hard-won global agreement and risk "undermining confidence in the solidarity of our climate effort" and harming "a number of our priority relationships".
New Zealand's is a member of the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance which includes Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The advice said the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia as well as Europe would view "backing off from Paris Agreement commitments extremely negatively".
The United States has since pulled out of the Paris Agreement.
The memo urged ministers to show their commitment by sealing climate cooperation deals with other countries last year - before a crucial deadline to show progress under the Paris Agreement.
Officials said sealing these deals to pay for emissions-cutting projects overseas - which are needed to achieve around two thirds of New Zealand's 2030 target - was a critical step for reassuring other nations this country was committed to meeting its obligations.
The government did not take this step, and still has not. So far it has declined to make a decision either way, despite the urging of its own advisers.
However after RNZ put questions to Climate Change Minister Simon Watts in July, officials asked RNZ to delete the material so they could replace it with a more fully redacted version.
The advice also contained legally privileged material which RNZ has decided not to use.
The advice also said Pacific Island countries would share similar concerns to New Zealand's larger "priority" partner countries about the implications for the durability of the Paris Agreement, "which is seen as a critical, if fragile, safeguard against an existential threat".
It said a loss of confidence in New Zealand's commitment to climate action would likely diminish its influence in the region at a time of "increased strategic competition."
"It is extremely likely that an individual country rejecting its commitments would be viewed through a lens of outsized impacts," it said.
The warning was part of a package prepared by environment officials and MFAT in March 2024 outlining why the government should not lower its 2030 climate target - and why it should take "concrete steps" to seal international deals.
Sixteen months later, the government has not reduced its target - and still says it is committed to meeting it - but it also hasn't taken the steps officials said it should take to reassure other nations that New Zealand planned to deliver.
Paying money to other countries to fund decarbonisation projects (for example electrifying diesel buses or shuttering coal plants in Asia or the Pacific) was explicitly baked into New Zealand's target when it was set.
Doing much of the work overseas was deemed cheaper and less disruptive than making faster, deeper cuts here, at least until the farming, electricity, manufacturing and transport sectors in New Zealand had had more time to deliver bigger emissions savings, which was expected to happen after 2030.
Without overseas help, this country will fall more than a year's worth of emissions short of its promise, according to latest estimates.
But since the 2023 election, ministers have repeatedly baulked at committing to paying for overseas carbon deals, saying spending billions offshore is not realistic, and that they still have time before 2030 - and even hinting that they might find 80 million tonnes of additional emissions savings here at home.
Officials have repeatedly told ministers that overseas deals are the only realistic way to meet the target.
Advisers have calculated that meeting the target here at home would take the equivalent of fully electrifying all road transport, eliminating all industrial energy emissions, and eliminating half of all agricultural emissions, all in the next four years. That would cause unnecessary "social and economic" pain, according to the Climate Change Commission.
Concerns about a domino effect
In the documents, officials warned that countries whose cooperation was important to New Zealand "would view backing off from Paris Agreement commitments extremely negatively - undermining confidence in the solidarity of our climate effort with theirs and triggering concerns this would 'push the domino' that gave cover to others."
They told the government taking concrete action last year to close deals with other countries would "mitigate the risks" of damaging important relationships.
Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore and other countries have already signed deals with the likes of Kenya, Peru, Nepal and Ghana to secure what's been called the "low hanging fruit" of climate action, including paying for energy efficiency upgrades to buildings, electric buses, ebikes and renewable energy.
Paying for poorer countries to cut emissions is cheaper than it would cost to achieve the same climate benefits in a wealthier country. Some climate lobby groups say taking the cheaper route is cheating - however government advisors say it is now New Zealand's only choice, short of reneging.
The sensitive advice said announcing concrete steps to buy carbon savings last year would help the New Zealand government to prove its commitment before the first deadline for all countries under the Paris Agreement to publish their Biennial Transparency Reports. The transparency reports are the Paris Agreement's main mechanism for countries to keep each other honest on their progress.
"It is important that New Zealand retains a clear narrative that it will uphold its legal obligations under the Paris Agreement, including pursuing measures with the aim of achieving the NDC," the government was told.
"This will provide partners more reassurance if this narrative is supported by a robust plan to optimise domestic mitigation and take concrete steps toward purchasing a steady stream of offshore emissions reductions. Early decisions to stand up purchasing arrangements will enable this progress to be demonstrated to key partners through the 2024 Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) and other channels," the advice said.
"Domestic mitigation" refers to steps inside New Zealand to cut emissions and meet the country's emissions budgets, which the government does through its Emissions Reduction Plans.
The Emission Reduction Plans have been set at a level that would meet around a third of the total 2030 target, with the other two thirds were expected to come from overseas, at a cost likely to end up in the low billions.
As of August 2025 the government had not announced any purchases.
That's despite MFE presenting Watts with six options for meeting New Zealand's commitments.
The details of those options were redacted from the documents.
In an interview on July 25, Watts confirmed that Cabinet had not made any decisions, either to buy help from offshore or rule it out.
"Our position on offshore mitigation remains consistent with what I've said previously, which is at this point Cabinet hasn't made any decisions on entering into any arrangements, however the government has made decisions since being in office in a number of countries to put in place mechanisms to enable that to occur, if the decision is made to do that," he said.
Last year the government announced memorandums of understanding with countries such as the Philippines, to "explore" potential future carbon trading under the Paris Agreement.
"Our focus remains that we are focussed on domestic emissions reduction opportunities... we are still making good progress to close that gap, it is a significant challenge but we are closing that gap, as I've noted with some of the technology that's come through even in the last six months," Watts said.
Asked if he accepted there was no path to closing an 80 million tonne gap by 2030 domestically, Watts said:
"I'm not going to make any statements on where we are going to be five years from now, what we are focussed on is what we can do with the tools that are available. There are new tools and innovations coming on month by month that allow us to close that gap."
Asked again if he was saying there was a prospect of meeting the 2030 target inside New Zealand, Watts said the government was "focussed and committed to its climate targets" and spoke about steps to meet the domestic emissions budgets.
"The government remains committed to the plan we have published and our domestic budgets," he said.
"I have optimism around our ability to get to those positions in the future."
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