Latest news with #ClimateChangeCommission
Newsroom
2 days ago
- Business
- Newsroom
The carbon market is on course to collapse in the 2030s
Analysis: The Government has made the Emissions Trading Scheme the centrepiece of its climate strategy, but has said nothing about what it will do to prevent the carbon market from crashing out in just over a decade. Warnings about the ETS running out of runway in the 2030s are not new, having first been raised by the Climate Change Commission in draft advice in early 2022, but they have taken on added gravity due to the coalition Government's heavy reliance on the scheme to meet its climate targets.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Climate
- RNZ News
NZ at significant risk of misisng 2050 climate target
environment climate 4:18 pm today New Zealand is at significant risk of missing its 2050 climate target, and the government's actions have increased the risk, according to independent monitoring. But the Climate Change Commission said there are big opportunities in renewable energy and clean farming that could help people, and the planet. Climate Change correspondent Eloise Gibson reports.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
New Zealand at 'significant risk' of missing 2050 climate target, government making it worse
New Zealand had made steady progress on reducing climate pollution in the past. (File photo) Photo: Supplied/ Unsplash - Chris Keats New Zealand is at significant risk of missing its 2050 climate target , and the government's actions have increased the risk, according to independent monitoring. The Climate Change Commission's 2025 emissions reduction monitoring report said New Zealand had made steady progress on reducing its climate pollution, but urgent action was needed to get on track for future goals. The report had shown the country was likely to meet the government's first emissions budget, which runs from 2022 to 2025, in part due to accounting changes in the way emissions were measured. However, the risks of missing targets from 2026 onwards had risen in the past year, and the government's plans were insufficient to put the country on track long-term. Among the specific risks identified was the increasingly shaky prospect of carbon capture and storage happening in the gas sector. The report said although the government's next emissions-cutting plan was not due until 2029, the coalition needed to take action before that because of the long lead-times taken for projects to start reducing pollution. It gave the example of NZ Steel's new electric furnace , which took three years. Jo Hendy, the commission's chief executive, said while things were broadly on track through to the end of this year, the risk of veering off course after that had increased. Climate Change Commission chief exectuive Jo Hendy said there was a risk of things veering off course. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas Real emissions (before counting the carbon sucked in by forests) fell steadily from 2019 to 2023. 2023 was the lowest level of real or gross emissions since 1999 - and provisional figures from Stats NZ suggested emissions kept falling in most sectors through to 2024, except for electricity generation, which rose last year because of power generators burning more fossil fuels when hydro lakes were low. Overall, the climate pollution trend was down, said Hendy. "We're seeing more renewable energy generation, process heat conversions, electrification," said Hendy. "And it's starting to show more in the emissions data. The key now is to build on that momentum - the next steps are crucial for delivery." "The current policy settings aren't enough to deliver the emissions reductions that Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to. That's why we've recommended specific next steps, because delivery will falter without them." The commission analysed every major sector, concluding the specific steps that would help the most were strengthening the Emissions Trading Scheme by updating the supply and price of carbon, to give companies more confidence to invest in cutting emissions, and bringing in policies to speed up the shifts to renewable energy, cleaner transport, and low-emissions farming. It also said the government could save taxpayers money and cut industrial climate pollution by re-thinking the generous freebies given to some large emitters, and choosing a new way to protect manufacturing jobs from carbon pricing instead. Hendy said many households were doing it tough, and would benefit if the government could capitalise on plunging prices for solar, electric vehicles, and batteries. "Falling short doesn't just mean missing a target - it means higher costs down the track, lost economic opportunities, and more disruption for communities." She said delivery was a stated priority for the government and the report provided the independent advice needed to "help them make good on that promise." The report said technologies for farmers to reduce methane emissions had advanced in the last year and were close to being on the market. Separately, the commission recommended shrinking the government's carbon budgets because changes to carbon accounting had moved the goal posts so the current budgets can be met with less real emissions cuts than were planned when the budgets were set. If the government does this, it would be even further off target. The report said moves by the government in the last year that risked producing more carbon included introducing road user charges for electric vehicles, re-opening oil and gas offshore exploration, and winding down the New Zealand Green Investment Finance fund. On the flipside, positive moves for the climate included existing government plans to update ETS settings, confirming rail capability for new Cook Strait ferries, and streamlining consenting for new electricity generation from renewable sources. "Our assessment of risk has increased in the last year, particularly for the third emissions budget," said the commission, referring to the 2031-2035 carbon budget. "For the second emissions budget, there are moderate risks of not achieving planned reductions in most areas; and some areas of significant risk." "While the third emissions reduction plan is not due until 2029, current plans are insufficient to meet the third budget and further action is required. There are also significant risks for meeting the 2050 target unless further action is taken." It said the total of government policies in its latest emissions cutting plan would reduce climate pollution by 3.3 millions from 2026-2030. Among the risks the commission listed were: Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Newsroom
5 days ago
- Business
- Newsroom
Climate Commission delivers inconvenient truths to Govt
Analysis: Climate policy is in many ways one of the most wickedly complex areas of government. The workings of the Emissions Trading Scheme, aligning scientific findings about difference greenhouse gases or climate impacts with policy design and even just measuring emissions from a cow can all be embroiled in subjective, heated debates. On occasion, though, it can be as simple as basic arithmetic. That's where the Climate Change Commission has landed with its progress report on the Government's climate policies, released early Friday before markets opened. Chief executive Jo Hendy tells Newsroom it's the commission's first chance to 'run the ruler' over the Government's climate plan, released in December. It's only the second-ever progress report, with last year's version having mostly evaluated then-cancelled Labour policies because the Government hadn't yet announced its own approach. While a lot of complex analysis underpins the independent watchdog's findings, the headline information is the result of a simple adding up exercise that effectively cuts through the Government's spin on how ambitious its climate plan really is. New Zealand is on track to meet the first five-yearly emissions budget – here, the commission agrees with the Government. The rest of the picture looks far less rosy. For the second budget, covering 2026 to 2030, there are moderate to significant delivery risks – and much greater ones than featured in last year's report. The Government's own projections leave it with just a couple million tonnes of headroom, which could easily be wiped out by a dry year prompting the burning of Huntly's coal stockpile, a wildfire or big storm destroying a large enough forestry block or the failure of the already shaky carbon capture policy. The real concern comes for the third budget and the 2050 net zero target, where again the delivery risks have grown. 'Current plans are insufficient to meet the third budget and further action is required. There are also significant risks for meeting the 2050 target unless further action is taken,' the commission writes. The Government's projections show it still has to cut emissions by over nine million tonnes over the third budget period. While Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says the Government will sort out how to do so in its third emissions reduction plan in 2029 (a point by which he also presumably hopes to no longer be responsible for sorting that out), the commission says that leaves it too late. Watts' current climate plan cuts emissions by just 3.3 million tonnes in the second budget period and he's already pretty confident that's everything the Government can do. (The commission, for what it's worth, has found tens of millions of tonnes of additional cuts that a sufficiently motivated government could implement.) How, then, is a future government to nearly triple that total with a plan in 2029? 'The Government needs to act ahead of the next emissions reduction plan (due in 2029) as many options that would make a difference will take time to take effect. For example, New Zealand Steel's electric arc furnace took three years to progress from funding approval to operation,' the commission insists. Fortunately, the commission finds there are significant opportunities for the Government to make up the difference if it starts now. There are nearly 20 million tonnes of cuts New Zealand could achieve in the third budget period through fixing up the Emissions Trading Scheme and implementing additional targeted policies. Agricultural and power generation emissions alone could fall by enough to plug the gap through regulatory reforms and incentives for uptakes of new technologies. 'This isn't just about hitting a number on an emissions reduction target, it's also about doing it well so that we cut energy costs, create those new jobs, protect market access and ultimately it's about our competitiveness and resilience as a country – as well as making that better future for our kids,' Hendy says. The ball is now in Watts' court, but don't expect him to do much with it. The commission returns repeatedly in this report to another issue that Watts is sitting on: Whether the budgets actually need to be revised to be more ambitious, as it recommended last year. In brief, the commission found last year that accounting changes for how we measure the emissions of cows, cars and other greenhouse gas sources mean it will now be easier to meet the budgets. Those changes don't represent real action New Zealand has taken. If we wanted to preserve the original ambition the budgets represented when they were set in 2022, the commission reported, we would need to revise them downwards. Because those new recommended budgets are still on Watts' desk, the majority of the commission's report today checks progress against the existing targets. However, it does also note at points how much additional effort would be needed to meet its recommended budgets. For the second emissions budget, that would be another 15 million tonnes of cuts over the second half of the 2020s. For the third budget, another 18 million tonnes on top of that. Collectively, the revisions represent about half of New Zealand's annual gross emissions – or more than 30 times the reductions the Government claims will arise from its carbon capture policy. While there are some subjective inputs to these calculations by the commission, the bulk of it comes down to hard maths. Or, as Watts might label it, an inconvenient truth.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
New Zealand at 'significant risk' of missing 2050 climate target
New Zealand had made steady progress on reducing climate pollution in the past. (File photo) Photo: Supplied/ Unsplash - Chris Keats New Zealand is at significant risk of missing its 2050 climate target , and the government's actions have increased the risk, according to independent monitoring. The Climate Change Commission's 2025 emissions reduction monitoring report said New Zealand had made steady progress on reducing its climate pollution, but urgent action was needed to get on track for future goals. The report had shown the country was likely to meet the government's first emissions budget, which runs from 2022 to 2025, in part due to accounting changes in the way emissions were measured. However, the risks of missing targets from 2026 onwards had risen in the past year, and the government's plans were insufficient to put the country on track long-term. Among the specific risks identified was the increasingly shaky prospect of carbon capture and storage happening in the gas sector. The report said although the government's next emissions-cutting plan was not due until 2029, the coalition needed to take action before that because of the long lead-times taken for projects to start reducing pollution. It gave the example of NZ Steel's new electric furnace , which took three years. Jo Hendy, the commission's chief executive, said while things were broadly on track through to the end of this year, the risk of veering off course after that had increased. Climate Change Commission chief exectuive Jo Hendy said there was a risk of things veering off course. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas Real emissions (before counting the carbon sucked in by forests) fell steadily from 2019 to 2023. 2023 was the lowest level of real or gross emissions since 1999 - and provisional figures from Stats NZ suggested emissions kept falling in most sectors through to 2024, except for electricity generation, which rose last year because of power generators burning more fossil fuels when hydro lakes were low. Overall, the climate pollution trend was down, said Hendy. "We're seeing more renewable energy generation, process heat conversions, electrification," said Hendy. "And it's starting to show more in the emissions data. The key now is to build on that momentum - the next steps are crucial for delivery." "The current policy settings aren't enough to deliver the emissions reductions that Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to. That's why we've recommended specific next steps, because delivery will falter without them." The commission analysed every major sector, concluding the specific steps that would help the most were strengthening the Emissions Trading Scheme by updating the supply and price of carbon, to give companies more confidence to invest in cutting emissions, and bringing in policies to speed up the shifts to renewable energy, cleaner transport, and low-emissions farming. It also said the government could save taxpayers money and cut industrial climate pollution by re-thinking the generous freebies given to some large emitters, and choosing a new way to protect manufacturing jobs from carbon pricing instead. Hendy said many households were doing it tough, and would benefit if the government could capitalise on plunging prices for solar, electric vehicles, and batteries. "Falling short doesn't just mean missing a target - it means higher costs down the track, lost economic opportunities, and more disruption for communities." She said delivery was a stated priority for the government and the report provided the independent advice needed to "help them make good on that promise." The report said technologies for farmers to reduce methane emissions had advanced in the last year and were close to being on the market. Separately, the commission recommended shrinking the government's carbon budgets because changes to carbon accounting had moved the goal posts so the current budgets can be met with less real emissions cuts than were planned when the budgets were set. If the government does this, it would be even further off target. The report said moves by the government in the last year that risked producing more carbon included introducing road user charges for electric vehicles, re-opening oil and gas offshore exploration, and winding down the New Zealand Green Investment Finance fund. On the flipside, positive moves for the climate included existing government plans to update ETS settings, confirming rail capability for new Cook Strait ferries, and streamlining consenting for new electricity generation from renewable sources. "Our assessment of risk has increased in the last year, particularly for the third emissions budget," said the commission, referring to the 2031-2035 carbon budget. "For the second emissions budget, there are moderate risks of not achieving planned reductions in most areas; and some areas of significant risk." "While the third emissions reduction plan is not due until 2029, current plans are insufficient to meet the third budget and further action is required. There are also significant risks for meeting the 2050 target unless further action is taken." It said the total of government policies in its latest emissions cutting plan would reduce climate pollution by 3.3 millions from 2026-2030. Among the risks the commission listed were: Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
