Can you start off by explaining what this IPCC meeting is and also what the assessment that they were discussing, the report that has been delayed is?

So the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was established in the 1990s.

So it's been running for a long time now and they're now up to the seventh assessment report, assessment round.

And these rounds take kind of four to five years or more, depending on whether they're interrupted by COVID, to be completed.

And the assessment is divided into three groups.

Working Group 1 does the physical science, Working Group 2 does the impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation and Working Group 3 does mitigation.

So there's lots of work going on across like defining what the issues are around climate change in terms of the actual climatic processes and then what that means for people and ecosystems and all kinds of things on the ground.

Do you think there are like a good faith equity concerns here or is this really more political?

How are we generally compared to the rest of the world? Are we still doing better than the average or have we really dropped down?

Well, yeah, it's hard to sort of say average because there's lots of you know, different factors that would influence how different countries might be working towards biodiversity conservation.

I think it's better to look at sort of the history of the trajectory of different countries and similar kind of countries and things like, you know, how we might be including Indigenous voices is an important thing to look at and definitely seeing backsliding on that.

And that's one of the...

Actually, it's part of several of those 23 Goals that including justice components in how decisions are made should be there.

And when we have our processes of how Māori voices are included in decision making being walked back, then we can't be expecting the government to deliver on goals that are related to Indigenous inclusion.

So relative to comparable countries, yeah, we're not progressing in the right direction and we've really got a lot of room to improve.

Apart from maybe reversing some of the steps we've taken in the last couple of years, are there any real specific actions you would like New Zealand to take to progress with biodiversity?

How are we generally compared to the rest of the world? Are we still doing better than the average or have we really dropped down?

Well, yeah, it's hard to sort of say average because there's lots of you know, different factors that would influence how different countries might be working towards biodiversity conservation.

I think it's better to look at sort of the history of the trajectory of different countries and similar kind of countries and things like, you know, how we might be including Indigenous voices is an important thing to look at and definitely seeing backsliding on that.

And that's one of the...

Actually, it's part of several of those 23 Goals that including justice components in how decisions are made should be there.

And when we have our processes of how Māori voices are included in decision making being walked back, then we can't be expecting the government to deliver on goals that are related to Indigenous inclusion.

So relative to comparable countries, yeah, we're not progressing in the right direction and we've really got a lot of room to improve.

Apart from maybe reversing some of the steps we've taken in the last couple of years, are there any real specific actions you would like New Zealand to take to progress with biodiversity?