Climate Change in New Zealand
Climate change poses significant challenges for New Zealand, despite the country generating fewer pollutant emissions than many industrialized nations. Since the early 1990s, New Zealand has been actively engaged in addressing climate change, recognizing potential threats such as severe weather events, rising sea levels, and the loss of tourism revenue due to melting glaciers. In response, the country has implemented an emissions trading scheme and other reforms aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As of now, New Zealand has committed to reducing its emissions by 30% from 2005 levels between 2021 and 2030, although assessments suggest these efforts may be insufficient. The impacts of climate change are already evident, with rising sea levels and temperature increases affecting natural landscapes and communities. Additionally, there is ongoing public skepticism regarding climate science, which complicates policy implementation. New Zealand's commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 is part of a broader international effort, yet political and legislative challenges persist, highlighting the complex interplay of environmental goals and economic considerations.
Subject Terms
Climate Change in New Zealand
In comparison to other industrialised nations, New Zealand generates fewer pollutant emissions. Still, the country has been at the fore of the climate change issue since the early 1990s. Much is at risk for New Zealand should climate change continue at the rate at which scientists say it is occurring, from severe weather events to coastal inundation to lost tourism revenue as its glaciers melt, among other potential problems. In response, New Zealand launched its own emissions trading scheme and other reforms designed to reduce emissions. New Zealand has also played an important role in international negotiations to create binding legal frameworks for the reduction of global greenhouse emissions. Challenges remain—including ongoing scepticism of climate change—but New Zealand continues to modify and adapt its policy pursuits on this issue.
Background
It took more than a century for the international community to predominantly see global climate change and humankind's involvement in it as critical issues. In the 1890s, Swedish scientists Svante Arrhenius and Arvid Högbom found that higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas (as it was later termed), were associated with higher global temperatures, and vice versa, across geologic time. Although this landmark discovery helped lay the groundwork for a wide range of twentieth-century scientific studies that revealed similar findings, global emissions of greenhouse gases from industry and fossil fuel combustion continued to grow in volume as the world grew in population. By the first decade of the twenty-first century, the scientific consensus was that the climate data and models showed that emissions are heating the planet and are rising.
In 1984, British scientists working in Antarctica and researchers at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) discovered a hole in the ozone layer within the upper atmosphere above Antarctica. This hole, caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs; often found in aerosol cans and refrigerants) and similar halogenated compounds, represented a dangerous weakening of the planet's main defence against the sun's cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation that could most affect Australia and New Zealand. According to NASA, the ozone hole has had a mixed effect on climate change: the chemicals that produced the hole are persistent, potent greenhouse gases but exist in low concentrations, and the ozone hole itself has a slight cooling effect as it allows trapped heat to escape from the stratosphere. New Zealand, in compliance with the 1987 Montreal Protocol, banned the import of all ozone-depleting substances in the 1990s and early 2000s and in 2016 committed to significantly phasing down the use of hydrofluorocarbons, which contribute to global warming.
The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, gave rise to a strict set of emissions controls known as the Kyoto Protocol in the late 1990s. It was agreed upon by eighty-four countries between 1998 and 1999. New Zealand became a signatory to that protocol in May 1998 and ratified it in December 2002, making New Zealand one of the fifty-five countries that brought it into force in 2005.
Climate Change in New Zealand Today
Because of New Zealand's proximity to the Antarctic, New Zealanders have been at the fore of the climate change issue. Evidence of climate change abounds in New Zealand, with an average measured rise of sixteen centimetres in sea levels and fewer frosts in the mountainous Canterbury and Marlborough Regions. New Zealand's national average temperature between the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries increased by 0.9 degrees Celsius, according to the Ministry for the Environment. Additionally, New Zealand's glaciers—to which almost one million people journeyed in 2015 alone—are melting at an ever faster rate, prompting tour companies to limit the number of visitors due to safety concerns.
The Ministry for the Environment is developing emergency plans for future effects of climate change, such as the impacts of sea level rise and damage from an expected rise in typhoons and other severe weather events. The ministry anticipates that along with those changes, shifts in precipitation patterns may increase the likelihood of flooding, droughts and poor water quality; rising temperatures may exacerbate the risks of disease, pests, heat stress and infrastructure damage; localised extinctions; and coastal damage. It also notes that some areas may benefit from improved agricultural or business opportunities and that mortality and illness related to cold weather may be reduced. The ministry is also working with city and regional councils to develop local plans. Furthermore, following the 2015 UNFCCC Paris Agreement, the government announced targets for 30 per cent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the 2005 levels to be realised between 2021 and 2030. As of 2023, the World Bank’s Climate Action Tracker has deemed New Zealand’s effort to meet these goals “highly insufficient.”
One of New Zealand's signature climate initiatives is an emissions trading scheme (ETS), the framework for which was introduced in 2007. Under the ETS, one metric ton of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions has a significant price attached to it. If businesses in forestry, industry, energy and fuels, synthetic gases and waste exceed government-imposed limits on such emissions, those emitters may trade emissions with other emitters at cost. The ETS is expected to reduce overall greenhouse emission in New Zealand and promote the planting and protection of forests to absorb carbon dioxide emissions. Similar ETS frameworks exist internationally, which allowed New Zealand's emitters to trade on a global marketplace. NZ emitters purchased international units inexpensively, dropping the value of the local units and lowering the incentive for businesses and consumers to change habits. In response the NZ government no longer allows international units to be traded in New Zealand. According to the Ministry for the Environment, the 2019 Climate Change Response Amendment Act created a Climate Change Commission and committed the country to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
New Zealand's policy responses to global climate change have not proven entirely effective. The World Bank data show that by 2020 New Zealand's rate of carbon dioxide emissions was 6.2 metric tons per capita, as compared to 14.9 metric tons per capita in neighbouring Australia. Yet, as in other developed nations, although scientific data and evidence strongly point to a trend of human-initiated climate change, many oppose or resist the conclusions that scientists draw from this information. Others are reluctant to sign on to emissions-reducing programs because they fear that such policies will increase business costs and raise prices. Former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer has also identified short terms in political office and ineffectual international laws as obstacles to meaningful progress. Palmer further notes that in many cases, New Zealand has repeatedly amended existing environmental laws, such as the Resource Management Act 1991, rather than pass new ones, and doing so can result in conflicting priorities or inaction.
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