Today’s world has been described by geologists as so vastly altered by human impacts, it may be classed as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Current climate and ecological crises in the Anthropocene have caused significant extinction, landscape and ecosystem destruction and now fundamentally threaten human existence. This paper, at its core, asks how humans have been able to cause such destruction and suffering, and how to change this devastating trajectory. To aid understanding, I interrogate the role of anthropocentrism in New Zealand’s implementation of the Paris Agreement. Anthropocentrism is an ontological position which centres human interests, separates humans from nature, and justifies nature's use and exploitation. I argue anthropocentrism is entrenched in New Zealand’s implementation of the Paris Agreement, shaping how environmental problems and solutions are conceptualised, narrowing possibilities for environmental action, and precluding truly just solutions. My research culminates in the construction of a counter-cultural politics of collective relationality informed by my interviews and indigenous scholarship. I argue that if humans come to understand our place in the world in relation to all things, not above or superior to anything else, we would be unable to perpetuate such harm. Further, the realms of possibility in terms of environmental solutions would be vast, and altruistic, prioritising giving power, agency, and space back to members of the non-human world. This necessitates radical changes to human constructions of society and understandings of the world. I argue these countercultural changes are critical in moving away from environmental calamity and toward a world of balance, collaboration, and relationship among all things.