New Zealand splits with Pacific neighbors over "aspirational" climate targets

New Zealand stood accused on abandoning its Pacific island neighbors at the Paris climate talks Monday over its refusal to back a move to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Ministers from 196 countries have agreed a draft climate change text, but are still wrangling over details such as whether to limit warming to 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees.

Australia joined with Pacific island nations over the weekend to call on world leaders to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, but New Zealand Climate Change Issues Minister Tim Groser has refused to support the more ambitious global target.

Groser told Radio New Zealand Monday that he did not want the talks to be bogged down over the issue.

"Having said that we will work with our Pacific friends to keep this alive, we do understand what drives this from their perspective," he said.

"I just don't want to see the conference fall over on something, which at the end of the day is just an aspirational goal."

New Zealand's opposition Green Party said the government was threatening to scupper a fair climate deal because it was "pandering to vested polluting interests in New Zealand."

"Government ministers seem more concerned about avoiding serious action on climate change than they do about the fate of our Pacific island neighbors," Green Party lawmaker Gareth Hughes said in a statement.

"It is now widely agreed than many Pacific islands would be uninhabitable in the future if temperatures are allowed to increase above 1.5 degrees," he said.

"Tim Groser is trying to avoid a review to ratchet up targets because inevitably New Zealand's inadequate target would have to increase." Endit