WHAT WAS CLAIMED
China, India, Russia and the US are no longer part of the Paris Agreement.
OUR VERDICT
False. While the US is leaving the agreement, Russia, India and China are still parties to it, along with more than 190 other countries.
AAP FACTCHECK - Russia, India and China are still part of the Paris Agreement on climate change, despite claims on social media and inferences from New Zealand politicians.
While the US is leaving the accord, no other countries have announced they're withdrawing, and more than 190 countries remain party to the agreement.
The Paris Agreement is an international pact that aims to restrict global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Farming lobby group Groundswell NZ made the claim in a Facebook post featuring an image of Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters alongside a quote attributed to him.
"Look the reality is that if we've got China, India, Russia and now the US, that is not part of [the Paris Agreement] anymore, then what on earth can we actually do?" said the purported quote from Mr Peters.
Groundswell NZ's post caption said: "Winston Peters gets it. New Zealand staying in the bad deal that is the Paris Agreement won't do a thing to lower global emissions, but it does lead to bureaucrats making unworkable rules to hit our impossible targets."
However, the quote attributed to Mr Peters omits a potentially important qualifier.
The deputy PM made the statement during a NewstalkZB interview on February 18, 2025, when he said these countries weren't a part of the agreement "in a practical sense" (six minutes 21 seconds).
"I was on another program quite some time ago when I was asked this very question, and I said, 'look, the reality is that if we've got China, India, Russia and now the US, that is not a part of it anymore, in a practical sense not part of it anymore, then what on earth can we actually do?'" Mr Peters said.
He then questioned how much the agreement would cost NZ "in a system of international responsibility that far too many countries are not part of".
The deputy prime minister appears to have been referring to a phone interview he gave on The Platform Media website on January 31 (0:50).
Asked whether NZ would follow US President Donald Trump and leave the agreement, Mr Peters said: "If China, if India, if Russia and the United States are not part of it … No matter what you think of this issue, do you think we're going to make a difference?"
It's unclear whether Mr Peters believes these countries have left the agreement literally or hypothetically, and also what he meant by "in a practical sense".
When asked to clarify his statement and for evidence to support his claim, Mr Peters' press secretary told AAP FactCheck: "This doesn't relate to any of Mr Peters' ministerial portfolios - he was speaking as leader of New Zealand First."
A New Zealand First representative did not respond to AAP FactCheck's repeated requests to clarify Mr Peters' statements.
ACT party leader David Seymour also made a statement on NewstalkZB on February 3, claiming that about "half the world appears to be pulling out of [the Paris Agreement] anyway" (2:29).
While President Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the agreement on January 20, 2025, no other country had followed at the time of writing.
As of March 13, 2025, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) lists 195 parties to the agreement, with Iran, Yemen and Libya not having ratified it.
The US was still listed as its formal withdrawal may take some time. When President Trump first withdrew in 2017, it took three years to be enacted.
While there have been reports that Argentina and Indonesia have considered withdrawing, AAP FactCheck was unable to find any evidence that India, Russia or China were considering leaving.
In contrast, all three countries made statements supporting the accord in recent months, including, in November 2024, the Russian envoy to a UNFCCC conference imploring Mr Trump to stay in the agreement.
Kay Harrison was NZ's climate change ambassador from 2019 to 2024.
She told AAP FactCheck that China, Russia and India were still party to the Paris Agreement.
Bronwyn Hayward, an expert in climate change and international relations at the University of Canterbury, also told AAP FactCheck she'd seen no evidence the three countries were withdrawing, adding that all three "have various trade and financial reasons to want to stay committed to Paris".
Professor Hayward noted that China and India were receiving significant development funding by staying in the agreement.
Nathan Cooper, an international law and climate change expert at the University of Waikato, told AAP FactCheck he hadn't heard any official communication that the three countries intended to leave the agreement.
However, he pointed out that the website Climate Action Tracker deemed China's and India's overall ratings, measured against the agreement, to be "highly insufficient", while Russia's was "critically insufficient".
"Mr Peters' comments around these countries not being in Paris 'in a practical sense' could be a way of saying they aren't taking climate action seriously enough," Dr Cooper said, though he added that if so, it "isn't the clearest way of putting it".
NZ's overall rating is also "highly insufficient", while Australia's is "insufficient".
AAP FactCheck previously debunked a similar claim by Australian Senator Gerard Rennick.
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