Climate Change Commission delivers report card

Tuesday, 30 July 2024

Even the 2025 target is not yet in the bag and may be at the whim of the weather, unless additional steps are taken to reduce the risk of an overshoot, report finds.

There is a significant risk New Zealand will miss its carbon emissions targets between 2026 and 2035 unless it takes further action, the Climate Change Commission says.

The risk of transport emissions rising and low hydro generation increasing electricity generators’ reliance on fossil fuels means meeting the “carbon budget” for the period between 2022 and 2025 is also not in the bag, it has warned.

The commission’s forecasts are based on the policy measures the Government put in place or announced before April, and do not reflect the impact of any additional measures.

The Government announced earlier this month that it believed it could meet its carbon budget for the period 2026 and 2030 while still growing the economy, by harnessing new technologies, such as carbon capture.

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has criticised its plans as based on “wishful thinking”.

Climate change minister Simon Watts says reduction of agriculture emissions will be based on technological advances.

Climate Change Commission chairperson Rod Carr said there was an urgent need for policies that put the country on track, flagging concerns over emissions from agriculture and the transport sector in particular.

Additional measures to reduce gross emissions would be needed to meet the emissions budget for the period 2026 to 2030, given it was “too late for planting forests to help much” over that period, the commission said.

Carr said that while emissions fell steeply in 2022, about 94% of those reductions were thanks to factors outside of the Government’s control, such as good hydro conditions, high fossil fuel prices and the “general economic conditions” that year.

There was a risk previous projections had underestimated the amount of deforestation that had occurred, he said.

“If this is the case, it makes it less likely that the first emissions budget will be met. We will know more later this year when updated projections and official estimates of ‘target accounting’ emissions are released,” he said.

“Clear and comprehensive climate action” was increasingly important, Carr said.

“Since our country’s climate goals were set in 2019, it has become apparent that the world is still not on track to stay under 1.5 degrees or even 2 degrees. This means sustained reductions in emissions will be needed.”

Carr acknowledged the Government had choices in how to meet the emissions targets but cautioned its policies had to “add up”.

“If policies are removed or weakened, other policies and approaches are needed to help ensure emissions will reduce enough to keep the country on the path to net zero,” he said.