Essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently New Zealand’s climate defiance could bring down the Jenga Tower of international law.
NZ’s rejection of emission targets fuels risk of international law breach
Published: December 5, 2025 10.19am AEDT
Karen Scott
Professor in Law, University of CanterburyThe New Zealand government’s decision this week to reject all of the Climate Change Commission’s emission target recommendations was just the latest in a string of policy statements that weaken the country’s action on climate.
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Does a failure to comply with those obligations undermine New Zealand’s commitment to the international rules-based order? Yes.
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More generally, however, New Zealand risks undermining the international rules-based order it relies on by framing those obligations as being merely about making “best efforts”.
The rules-based order is like a game of Jenga. The rules, including obligations to address climate change, are the building blocks. While some states are overtly taking a wrecking ball to the tower, others are undermining it by ignoring those rules, essentially removing individual blocks.
But small states need that tower to remain intact. Supporting the international rules-based order by complying with its climate obligations would allow New Zealand to show leadership when it is most needed.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/nzs-rejection-of-emission-targets-fuels-risk-of-international-law-breach-271295
I’m surprised New Zealand is defying anything climate related.
“If you’re a climate change denier at the moment or even a minimalist, I just don’t understand how you can hold that position to be honest.” – Current New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in 2023.
Perhaps things have changed since 2023. New Zealand is currently suffering a catastrophic brain drain, as young and ambitious New Zealanders desert a homeland which is struggling to offer hope to its young people. Maybe a dose of green economic collapse is finally bringing New Zealand’s out of touch establishment to its senses.
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Who establishes the international rules-based order, and by what authority. Who established the international rules-based order on climate actions?
“Who established the international rules-based order on climate actions?”
Oligarchs who have been trying to institute global governance since at least the League of Nations.
Waaaayyyy before that.
For the League of Nation to happen a World War was needed.
And before WW1(take a look at Franz Ferdinands carplate) in 1913 the dollar was taken over by a private banking cartel = FED in 1913.
To stabilize the economy was the official reason – result:Great Depression by deliberately and gradually reducing dollar supply a few years later.
2 of the families involved in the dollar takeover: JPM &JDR
JPM&JDR financed Hitler.
Result :creation of UN
Before that Andrew Jackson shut down the predecessor of the FED, the 2nd bank of the US, because it was mostly owned by London bankers according to Jackson.
Before that was the first globalist corporation: East India Company.
The flag of the East India Company(who also owned the slave ships) became the ( arguably )first US Flag,
the continental flag.
The interesting thing: The East India Company flag was created in 1707,
yet it already had 13 stripes,
while the US only had 11 colonies at that time(King George no.2,Georgia was named after , wasn’t even king in 1707).
How did the owners of the East India Company knew about the number of founding states?
Or – what do those stripes really stand for?
Thanks for the follow up! Why I said “at least”. When I was a youngster in college taking political science I traced the power structure on Earth back to the Hapsburg dynasty. It goes back further as an unbroken link of oligarchs manipulating world affairs.
“It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am.” – George Washington, 1st President of the United States (1789–1797), from a letter that Washington wrote on October 24, 1798, which can be found in the Library of Congress.
There is no “international rules-based order” on anything. The only international rules are those based upon direct treaty agreement between sovereign nations. There is no climate change treaty among nations, as the United States expressly refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 1998 The Paris Accord was not structured as a binding treaty among the signatories. It was done that way to avoid the problem of legally binding under their own law for ALL signatories.
The UN can make claim to those rules. Their interest is in a global tax base that they administer. You should not expect the great men, women and undecided of the UN to grovel at the feet of leaders like Trump for money. They need their own tax base.
Ah, someone who knows who made them rooolz!
Show me?
Come on, if there are rules, surely you can show me the list?
They make it up as they go.
Whaddyagonadoboudit? Huh? Huh? Stop slapping yourself…
You are being ruled by bullies and thugs, that is the end of it.
After four decades of looking for that rule book, the only one that has never, ever failed me in providing the true explanation for our situation, is the Protocols of Zion.
Prove me wrong.
[Sing to the tune of Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”] –
“Eco-Nazis Want to Rule the World”
Folks who need a pitchforks&torches gathering held in their honor.
After the end of the cold war the US made the rules and was the rule. That is passing away.
It is probably a fantasy now.
Go tell that to the people on the good ship Liberty, or the Lucitania, or maybe the side in Quatar who got bombed while negotiating with the US.
Or maybe the millions of Yanks sent off to die in wars nobody voted for, to do nothing of benefit to the citizens of US, but always beneficial yo the security and profitability of people nobody
can nameUS makes the rules, riiiight!
NZ and AU should re-position themselves in the climate capers contest to join the Pacific Islands team.
Then they could both start fronting up to all the international climate shindigs with their hands out for cash instead of digging into their own wallets to deposit $$$$s into the UN’s begging bowl.
Simples!
I did a search on: Budget for the IPCC for 2024. To date New Zealand has “donated” 488,997 Swizz francs to the IPCC. The USA has made no donation to the IPCC for 2024.
The IPCC office is in Bern, Switzerland. In winter on the weekends the workers go to to St. Moritz for party time. The ca. 400 workers have been living off the global warming gravy train since 1988.
400 “workers” Harold?
The number I found several years ago was 432. The UNFCCC currently has ca. 1,500 workers.
How can navel-gazing require such a large complement of “workers”?
Well, Mr, there’s all the selfies that need taking, all the they/them-ing, all the crying Tik Tok videos…
Okay, but don’t export the climate failures like Jacinda.
Maybe drop her on The Hague or UN headquarters?
Thanks, but we’ve got enough pollution of our own without anyone else’s shit.
Without a parachute?
Jacinda Ardern, Daniel Andrews, Angela Merkel and Nicola Sturgeon have all gone, but the damage they did will continue for many years.
Reject international rule, laws, etc. Yes! Maybe use one of their commercial airline planes to drop sheep shit on the Hague.
“Obligations” to globalist tyrants should be rejected by every means possible. Owning nothing so that feudal lords can keep the world dependent and them in power is slavery.
“International rules-based order” is a catch phrase for ‘screw your sovereignty, we have decided what will be best for us and you will agree and comply’.
The international rule based order is – whatever the City of London and Wall Street say it is.
This order has not prevented a single war of the MiC(nor was the term “rule based order” ever used by the MSM to criticise those wars), and it is only binding for the lesser states(= not NATO members)
and is only brought up as argument when non-NATO countries use the same methods.
A current example is Russias shadow fleet(here called Maritime rule based order).
It is only for 2 reasons a shadow fleet.
The free western world says so(while 70% of the world says It’s perfectly fine) and they are not insured by the City of London.
Before that Biden cried for a rule based order in the Ukraine conflict and then sent cluster ammo to Ukraine violating international agreements..
Rule based order is a 2 tier system and virtue signalling tool.
“Supporting the international rules-based order by complying with its climate obligations would allow New Zealand to show leadership”. James Hacker (Yes Prime Minister) put it more succinctly: “I am their leader. I must follow them”.
Someone in New Zealand must have had an epiphany that emissions targets greatly limits travel to and from an island nation in the middle of the Pacific. I guess isolation has a high cost too.
“Claim: Rejecting Emissions Targets Undermines the International Rules Based Order”
Good.
Well the plane appears to have a picture of a leaf on it. Doesn’t that make it “green” enough?/sarc
What a mind numbingly stupid thing to say about New Zealand. Karen Scott needs to be fired immediately and hired out to clean outhouses. What a disgrace.
For a New Zealand temperature check, I went to:
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/countries/new-zealand/average-temperature-by-year. The Tmax and Tmin data from 1901 to 2024 are displayed in long table. Here is temperature data for these two years:
Year—–Tmax—–Tmin—–Tavg
2024—-16.1——-6.8——-11.4
1901—-14.7——-5.4——-10.0
Chng.–+1.4——+1.4——-+1.4
After 123 years, New Zealand has warmed up by only small amount,
and the warming is below the 1.5° C limit set by the Paris Agreement of 2015. The Tavg warming rate is 0.12° C per decade.
New Zealand doesn’t to have worry about CO2 emissions.
NB: Please check out: https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com. On the homepage there are links in light blue for many sites located around the world. For cities use:
https://www.extemeweaterwatch.com/cities/city name/
Enter the city name in small letters. For a city that is two words insert a hyphen between the two words. The weather and climate data for the city is displayed. Scroll down to end for more options for acquisition and display of data.
Good!!!!! Whilst we is yankin’ blocks out the tower let me grab several. 😉
They’ve been doing that for so long its practically a tradition. They get out of uni with a degree, come to London and make their fortune, then go back home to buy a house and settle down. Although lately a house in NZ isn’t too far off the price of a house in England.
“Perhaps things have changed since 2023. New Zealand is currently suffering a catastrophic brain drain, as young and ambitious New Zealanders desert a homeland which is struggling to offer hope to its young people. Maybe a dose of green economic collapse is finally bringing New Zealand’s out of touch establishment to its senses.”
Doesn’t matter. Who needs those white people. We’ve got Indigenous knowledge.
It does feel like the dam has broken.
“bringing New Zealand’s out of touch establishment”…
Aw, rats, you fixed it. When I saw this piece yesterday, it read as “brining New Zealand’s out of touch establishment” which I thought was one of the more amusing typos fairly close to the US Thanksgiving holiday. After all, brining is what you’re supposed to do with turkeys!
The learned professor is obviously defending the existence of his own job.
An interesting flow from paragraph to paragraph – in para 1 they are called “recommendations”, while in para 2 they’ve become “obligations” and by para 3 it has become “rules-based order”. Also in paragraph 3, we note a complaint that the Commission is mis-classifying those recommendations as “best efforts”
It looks to me like that Commission properly decided that “recommendations” were NOT binding and that NZ couldn’t afford to implement them.
The ICC who is supposed to be part of this international rules based order is under attack from Trump and Russia 🙂
https://apnews.com/article/icc-court-trump-sanctions-russia-6f8a0c911bccaaa9551529fc03b3dcc0
One of the judges wanted sympathy and gave insight into how it affects his life
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-radio-national-hour/icc-judge-says-trump-sanctions-affect-every-aspect-of-my-life/106088546
Poor baby expects sympathy.