National emissions decline

Official statistics shows emissions are continuing to decrease and have dropped across all sectors of New Zealand’s economy.

The country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, which lags reality by over a year, shows emissions declined by two per cent in 2023, which is about the same as the emissions produced by one-quarter of cars in a year.

New Zealand’s gross emissions, which refers to actual emissions before counting forestry removals, rose in the 1990s. They topped out in 2006 and were relatively stable for more than a decade before falling in 2022 and the year after that.

Gross emissions in 2023 came in at 76.4 million tonnes, which was 13 per cent higher than 1990 but lower on a per-capita basis because of population growth. 

The inventory, which is published by the Ministry for the Environment, is the official report of all emissions produced and removed by human activities within New Zealand.

It shows forestry absorbed around one-quarter of the GHGs produced by the main sectors of waste, industry, farming and transport in 2023.

In agriculture, falling numbers of sheep, dairy cows and beef cattle saw emissions drop slightly by two per cent, while improved productivity in farming has allowed agricultural emissions to fall since 2014.

A wet year with strong hydro-electricity production, including Otago’s Clyde Dam, pictured above, meant the country burned less coal and gas for power. This contributed to a one per cent fall in GHGs from the energy sector in 2023.