Chris de Freitas: NZ missing targets in bid to curb greenhouse gases

It's official and the news is not good: New Zealand is falling behind in its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to meet targets set by the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to combat global warming that this country signed last December.

A report released this month by the Ministry of Economic Development shows that greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector grew by 33 per cent between 1990 and last year. Under the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand is obliged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2012 at the latest, or suffer the consequences.

The report provides even more bad news: the energy sector's carbon dioxide emissions grew by 2.7 per cent from 2001 to last year, up from the average annual growth of 2.4 per cent since 1990.

International comparisons in the report show New Zealand had the second-highest percentage increase of carbon dioxide emissions among the 23 OECD countries for the period from 1990 to 2000.

A similar report prepared by the European Environment Agency shows the European Union is in the same boat. Greenhouse gas emissions have risen in the EU for the second year running. In the most recent estimate, emissions in 2001 were 1 per cent greater than in 2000.

The EU, as a whole, is committed to reducing emissions by 8 per cent on their 1990 levels by 2012. On present trends, it appears to stand almost no chance of meeting the target.

According to BBC News Online, the prominent British global warming sceptic Professor Philip Stott commented: "One of the most galling things about the whole climate change debate has been European duplicity. While lecturing everybody else, especially America, on the morality of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it has been abundantly clear from the start that most European countries didn't have a snowflake in hell's chance of meeting their own Kyoto targets."

One wonders if the same could be said of New Zealand.

The situation is somewhat surprising in that the EU was expected to meet its target more easily than the other OECD countries that are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. In particular, the big three - Britain, Germany and France - were expecting declines in emissions that began in 1990 to continue.

Germany is the EU's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. However, it obtained a large credit for closing inefficient plants in the former East Germany, resulting in a relatively rapid 44 per cent drop-off in greenhouse emissions in the 1990s. But Germany's emissions rose 1 per cent between 2000 and 2001, indicating that this period of industry revamping was over.

France has held its ground because it gets most of its electric power from nuclear plants, which produce no carbon dioxide. But the EU's case suffered several setbacks.

For Britain, the past decade has been a harrowing period of ups and downs. Carbon dioxide emissions there fell in the 1990s when utilities switched from coal to natural gas. This was not related to climate change, but natural gas produces less carbon dioxide. Britain thought it could exploit this trend. But emissions rose as power suppliers switched to coal generation after a steep rise in natural gas prices. One must ask if this is the route New Zealand will be forced to take.

For the smaller economies of the EU there are lessons for New Zealand.

The European Environment Agency report shows that Ireland, Spain and Portugal are the worst offenders, but Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Austria, Finland and Denmark all fell short of the targets.

For some, the targets are quite modest. Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland are committed only to holding increased emissions to a set level, but all four countries have exceeded targets.

Annual emissions in Spain rose by 32 per cent instead of 15 per cent, and in Ireland by 31 per cent rather than 13 per cent. The result is the EU is moving further away from meeting its commitment.

At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the New Zealand Government promised to stabilise emissions at 1990 levels by 2000.

Instead, emissions have gone the other way. By ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand has undertaken to reverse this trend. This means reducing emissions by about 33 per cent from the business-as-usual level by 2012. If overall energy demand continues to grow annually, the target reductions of carbon emissions required by Kyoto will increase through time.

Thus, to meet the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand will have to give up at least one-third of its energy use. This cannot happen in the economy as we know it. The infrastructure for emission sources lasts a long time after initial investment and will influence the emissions profile for some time.

Then there is the problem of methane. Agriculture, the backbone of our economy, is responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions. More than half our total emissions come from this sector.

The recent report shows that methane levels rose by 41 per cent between 1990 and last year.

If Kyoto is, as some suggest, one small step along a long trail, New Zealand is not even close to making that step.

* Chris de Freitas is an associate professor in geography and environmental science at Auckland University.