NZ GHG emissions in 2020 were 78.8 million tonnes

Tāmaki Makaurau - New Zealand’s gross greenhouse gas emissions were 78.8 million tonnes of CO2-e in 2020, 20.8 percent higher than in 1990, Stats NZ says.

Climate change is primarily caused by the accumulation of GHG emissions in the atmosphere due to human activities.

In 2020, New Zealand’s gross GHG emissions were made up of carbon dioxide (43.7 percent), methane (43.5 percent), nitrous oxide (10.7 percent) and fluorinated gases (2.0 percent).

Gross emissions in 2020 were 3.5 percent lower than in 2019, primarily due to decreased road transport emissions.

The indicator New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions measures greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which have resulted from production activity in New Zealand territory from 1990 to 2020.

Covid lockdowns in 2020 saw road transport emissions drop by 8.3 percent, their biggest annual decrease since 1990.

Gross carbon dioxide emissions were up 35.1 percent and were mainly produced by transport (38.0 percent), manufacturing industries and construction (19.1 percent), and public electricity and heat production (13.4 percent).

Gross methane emissions were up 3.9 percent and were mainly produced by livestock (88.9 percent). Gross nitrous oxide emissions were up 46.1 percent and mainly came from agricultural soils (93.1 percent). 

Stats NZ obtained emissions data from New Zealand’s greenhouse gas inventory 1990–2020, which is produced by the Ministry for the Environment (MfE).

This is part of New Zealand’s reporting obligation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol (Ministry for the Environment, 2022). The indicator was last updated in February 2022.

The WHO guidelines, released last year, feature lowered thresholds for what is considered harmful to human health for most of the indicators listed above.

Data for the air quality indicators is provided by regional councils and unitary authorities. These indicators were last updated in October 2021.

Stats NZ publishes and updates Aotearoa New Zealand’s environmental indicators covering air, atmosphere and climate, fresh water, land and the marine environment.

Climate change is primarily caused by the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere due to human activities. GHGs absorb heat from Earth’s surface, warming the atmosphere.

Different GHGs remain in the atmosphere for different amounts of time, ranging from a few years to thousands of years.

Emissions of gases with a long lifetime (more than a few decades) build up in the atmosphere, with this year’s emissions added on to previous decades and even centuries of emissions.

New Zealand’s share of global GHG emissions is small, but its gross emissions per person are high.