Trinidad diary

Climate Change Minister Nick Smith, Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples and Prime Minister John Key. Photo / Mark Mitchell

While Parliament has been in the grip of debate over the Emissions Trading Scheme, John Key has been burning up plenty in a long journey getting to the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago with the Royal New Zealand Air Force. But he is not quite there yet.

He is in Hawaii today having stopped in Tonga yesterday to pick up PM Fred Sevele, and in Samoa to pick up PM Tuilaepa Sai'lele Malielegaoi and Vanuatu's PM, Edward Natapei.

Five media organisations have taken advantage of the low cost offer to travel with Key on the Air Force Boeing 757. It will be 48 hours flying in 10 legs there and back.

The Boeing flew past the southern coast of Upolu leaving Samoa but from the distance we were at, you couldn't tell what devastation the tsunami had wreaked upon it last month.

During the stopover in Samoa, Key had a private meeting with Joe Annandale who lost his wife, Tui, in the tsunami.

We were to have left for the Caribbean this afternoon but unfortunately have been delayed for three and a half hours, for reasons unknown at this stage. Fingers crossed the 757 has not broken down as it regularly did before a major refurbishment in Alabama when Phil Goff was Defence Minister.

And I am itching to get to Trinidad. Its proximity to the climate change talks in Copenhagen on Dec 7 will give a real focus and profile. Commonwealth secretary general Kamalesh Sharma this week described this Chogm as a "crisis summit" in a speech to a Commonwealth civil society conference in Trinidad:

"How times have changed since the last People's Forum in Kampala, Uganda. We have all had a bad few years: of crisis upon crisis. The fuel and food crises of last year have been compounded by a financial crisis in 2009, in which no less than half of our members are suffering negative growth. Everyone is hurting - there is a strong case for saying that CHOGM 2009 constitutes a crisis summit."

I guess that could be the only reason a French President would be dropping by a Commonwealth meeting - though I'll believe that when it happens. Sarkozy is reported to be joining the climate change session in Trinidad on Saturday (NZ time) on his way back from a climate change meeting with Amazon countries.

Meanwhile the local Honolulu paper Star Bulletin has a story about New Zealand in its world pages - an AP story about "Icebergs heading for New Zealand" and its main story is about scientists at a Hawaii 's Mauna Loa Observatory. "CO2 alert" is the headline.

Audrey Young

Pictured above: Climate Change Minister Nick Smith, Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples and Prime Minister John Key. Photo / Mark Mitchell