Decoupling New Zealand’s economic growth from GHG emissions

By Catherine Leining, Policy Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.

Global progress to avoid the worst impacts of climate change depends on our ability to separate economic growth and wellbeing from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They cannot continue to increase in lock step. One indicator of progress is our GHG intensity: tonnes of emissions per unit of GDP.

StatsNZ’s first report on New Zealand’s Environmental and Economic Accounts finds evidence this decoupling of our economic growth and emissions is occurring. Over 1990-2015, New Zealand’s economy grew by an average of 3.1% per year while GHG emissions increased 0.9% per year. This means that, over that 25 year period, the economy’s GHG intensity declined by an average of 2.2% per year. That shows progress, but it is not enough.

Where can households make a difference to their emissions?

by Ceridwyn Roberts, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Motu has just released new research identifying where households can make a real difference to their greenhouse gas emissions – and cutting down on red meat and purchasing an electric vehicle are top of the list.

Corey Allan, Suzi Kerr and Campbell Will looked at information from the 2006/7 and 2012/13 Household Economic Surveys1 and found many opportunities for ordinary Kiwis to reduce their impact on climate change.

While most households are taking at least some actions that reduce emissions, the actions they are choosing are not necessarily the ones that will have the biggest emission benefits. To give the general public more information about what sources of emissions have the most impact, Suzi and Corey worked with ChewyData and the NZ Herald to compile The Household Climate Action Tool, hosted by NZ Herald Insights. This uses averages of annual spending and household purchases to help people figure out their household’s best choices to reduce emissions.

Clearing the air on methane

by Zack Dorner

Agricultural emissions, caused in part by lots of cows and sheep burping, are responsible for around half of all of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand faces “unusually high costs to cut greenhouse gas emissions” due to the large number of livestock in the country, or so the government is continuing to argue. With Suzi Kerr, I’ve just released a Motu Working Paper looking at methane emissions from NZ agriculture, which comprise 30% of NZ’s agricultural emissions (with 18% being from nitrous oxide), so it seems timely to look at some of the issues regarding methane, and hopefully clear the air on this confusing and complicated topic!

The Global Calculator: Crunching the numbers for a low-emission future

By Paul Young, Generation Zero

Paul Young is a co-founder of the youth climate change organisation Generation Zero and remains involved as a member of the national executive. He is also a trustee of the National Energy Research Institute, the modelling team leader for the NZ 2050 Pathways project, and a participant in the Motu Low-Emission Future Dialogue.

“Hate wind farms? Eat chicken, not beef” - The Telegraph, 28 January 2015

Despite the baiting headline from a newspaper known for its doubtful position on man-made climate change and antagonism towards wind power, the team behind the newly-launched Global Calculator marked this coverage as a success.

The Telegraph had picked up on one (rather surprising) conclusion from the Global Calculator: cutting global beef consumption by 100 grams per week per person and eating chicken instead would “do more to tackle climate change than building two million onshore wind turbines and 2,000 nuclear reactors.” This results not just from the direct reductions in farming emissions, but also the implications for land use which are captured in the Calculator model. It’s one great example of the kind of choices and trade-offs this remarkable tool allows us to explore and gain insight into.

New Zealand’s journey toward a low-emission future: Today’s climate change landscape

By Catherine Leining, Senior Policy Fellow, Motu

Note: Motu has just published three Motu Notes on climate change issues prepared as background papers for its Low-Emission Future Dialogue. The first in the series presents an overview of the climate change challenges facing New Zealand and the current policy context.  This information is highly relevant because in 2015 New Zealand will need to present its post-2020 emission reduction commitment - referred to as an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution - under a new international climate change agreement currently under negotiation. The paper's executive summary is provided below.  The full paper is available here. 

In the coming decades, New Zealand will face important choices shaped by both the risks and opportunities created by climate change. This paper provides an overview of the current climate change landscape from which New Zealand is starting the next stage of its journey toward a global low-emission future. The key findings are:

Climate change science, emission trends and mitigation scenarios The latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reinforce the case for significant reductions to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Under business-as-usual growth in emissions, the global mean surface temperature in 2100 could increase by 3.7^oC to 4.8^oC compared to pre-industrial levels. A least-cost pathway to limit temperature increases to not more than 2^oC above pre-industrial levels would involve reductions of 40–70 percent below 2010 levels by 2050 on the way toward a zero-net-emission global economy. A key objective should be limiting cumulative emissions, and delaying action significantly increases the costs of mitigation.

6 ways to have a low-emissions Christmas and New Years

By Judd Ormsby

This is the last post on this site for the year so I thought I’d try make it a fun one. In this post I take a look at six fun ideas that might help you reduce your emissions. If you have some more ideas drop them in the comments below.


1) Quit your job!

Okay maybe that’s a bit extreme, but the best predictor of consumption emissions seems to be your expenditure.  But if you are considering cutting back your hours, well now you know it could help the planet. (Actually it’s ultimately humans you’re helping, not so much the planet. Planets don’t have feelings.)

2) Save, don’t spend. Enjoy more leisure and less consumption

My colleagues having a jam at our Christmas party

Food and beverage industry must act on climate change

By Sarah Meads, Senior Policy Advisor, Oxfam New Zealand

The world is dangerously unprepared for climate impacts on food - yet food companies are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation. Here Sarah Meads explains why food and beverage companies need to clean up their act. 

What has climate change got to do with food and beverage companies? In brief, agriculture and deforestation (largely driven by the expansion of agricultural land) are responsible for around 25% of global emissions. At the same time, climate change presents a major risk to food supply chains and ultimately to the profitability of the 10 biggest food and beverage companies and to the food industry worldwide. 

Oxfam’s new report, Standing on the Sidelines: Why the food and beverage companies must do more to tackle climate change, calls on food and beverage companies to dramatically step up action on climate change by using their influence to reduce agricultural emissions and to emerge as leaders by speaking out on the need for climate action from other industries and governments.

Reducing methane emissions - timing matters

By Luke Harrington

Recent climate modelling research has found that countries with high emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) should keep mitigation of carbon dioxide (CO₂) a top priority, and working to reduce methane emissions in isolation will not be any more effective than doing so in several decades time. In essence, “action on short-lived climate pollutants will not ‘buy time’ to delay action on carbon dioxide”, says co-author Professor David Frame, director of the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute.

Who is taking smaller bites out of climate stability?

By Corey Allan, Research Analyst, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

How should we compare efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across countries? The Kyoto Protocol focuses on production emissions, which are the emissions resulting from the production of goods and services. But what is the point of production? Would we produce goods if there was no one to consume them? In a globalised world, production will move from one country to another if there is still sufficient demand for the output. So is a country really contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as much as it appears if their production emissions are falling, but their consumption of emissions-intensive goods remains unchanged?

Researchers at Motu, and a student intern from Stanford, have just released a preliminary analysis of the emissions associated with household consumption in New Zealand.  The analysis shows that the composition of consumption emissions can differ significantly from the composition of production emissions.  The difference is particularly salient for food emissions, as you can see from the two charts below: