Woods MeganDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Kia ora koutou and thank you for the chance to speak in this debate. Like my colleagues I would like to acknowledge the Hon Shane Jones who is in the gallery and to thank from the bottom of my heart the Pacific delegation for coming to our Parliament. I have never heard so many people talk about climate change in this House. As Labour's spokesperson on climate change issues this is indeed a very happy day for me. It seems that my portfolio is one that everyone wants to discuss today. Along with my colleague Su'a William Sio within Labour we address the issue of what New Zealand needs to do on the issue of climate change both here in New Zealand in the Pacific and in terms of our international responsibilities.I know that Su'a spoke earlier about his journey around the Pacific earlier this year and what he saw first hand was that climate change is not theoretical in the Pacific. It is an everyday lived reality and we have to do more. This morning John Kerry—in the middle of the next wave of the Paris arrangements—talked about not taking leadership on climate change being a moral failure. If New Zealand wants to assert its leadership role in the Pacific it has a moral obligation to take a firm stand on climate change.This is our job. I do not think our current action on climate change is enough. I do not think it is the kind of moral leadership that we need to be showing to the world in addressing what is the most pressing issue of our time: the survival of parts of our region. We tabled at the Paris conference last year an intention to decrease our global emissions to 11 percent below 1990 levels. This will not get us to limiting temperature increase to 1.5 degrees. This will see temperatures in our world rise 2 to 3 degrees and the Pacific simply cannot withstand that kind of temperature increase. It is not sustainable and it is not something that we can do. New Zealand needs to do more.I enjoyed like my colleagues on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee—we do actually let one woman on that committee in this country—the talk that we had with members of the delegation this morning around issues around climate change in the Pacific. I note that one of the issues that this motion is addressing is security in the Pacific and climate change goes straight to the heart of the continued security in the Pacific in the 21st century.We know we are already seeing droughts in parts of the Pacific. Su'a could not get out because of rain and only a very short distance away the drought was going on. We talked about salinisation only being a problem on the Islands when there is not enough rain to flush it away. We know that the issue of drought is going to be an ongoing issue.We also talked about the need for there to be technical expertise available and I think this was one of the interesting parts of our discussion this morning. Technical expertise is needed around the kinds of crops that are more drought resistant and could be grown as the climate does change in some of these places. Technical expertise is needed in terms of addressing many of the issues. As Su'a often reminds me some of the technical expertise that we are seeing in the Pacific in terms of adapting to climate change New Zealand needs to learn from—that you are on the front line already and that it is being dealt with. I know that Su'a came back very strongly with that as a message to our caucus: that there is much for us to learn.We need to think about the aid that we give in terms of climate change. We need to think about the best way that we can serve our region. Is it through big multilateral funds which we know that Pacific nations struggle to be able to get money out of? Or is it through bilateral aid which is about adapting to the ravages of climate change in your homes?They are all things that as parliamentarians if we are going to take climate change seriously we need to grapple with and I disagree with the previous speaker from the National Party who said that Your future was solely in your hands." We have a part to play. We have a responsibility and it is our moral obligation to do more to combat climate change."