New Zealand's Paris target too weak for 1.5C - official advice to Govt
New Zealands Paris Agreement target is inconsistent with the Governments goal of keeping the average temperature increase to within 1.5 degrees Celsius, officials have told ministers. The advice from the Ministry for the Environment was given to Climate Change Minister James Shaw in February and obtained by Stuff under the Official Information Act. Shaw was told the target allows some 85 million tonnes more emissions between 2021 and 2030 than would be compatible with a 1.5C goal putting the country over budget by about one years current emissions. The Government set a goal of limiting heating to 1.5C in the Zero Carbon Act after an influential report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which concluded letting temperatures go higher would expose hundreds of millions of people to worsening risks, including crop disruption, water scarcity and coastal flooding. READ MORE: * Five things Judith Collins has said on climate change * Bill puts slowly sinking lid on emissions * Budget 2020: trading coronavirus for the climate crisis New Zealands Paris pledge was set by the Key Government before the IPCC report, when analysts anticipated a target of 2C. In Opposition, Green Party co-leader James Shaw attacked the target as being weak. As Climate Change Minister in the Ardern Government, he sought advice on whether the target was sufficient. Ministry analysts told him it was compatible with 2C, but not 1.5C. The advice was based on IPCC trajectories showing how fast countries emissions must fall to stay inside the limit. Soon after, Shaw punted the same question to the Climate Change Commission. In April, Shaw announced hed asked the commission two things: is New Zealands Paris target compatible with keeping inside 1.5C, and should methane be given its own separate category, to align with the Zero Carbon Act? He did not seek Cabinet approval to update the target. Shaw told Stuff the advice from officials did prompt me sending the question to the Climate Change Commission, although I was heading in that direction anyway. Asked why he didnt try to raise the target based on the ministrys advice, he said it would have taken just as long and more detail was needed. The reason I didnt change it on the spot is because the question is, what do you change it to? The Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), or Paris Agreement target, was developed during 18 months of consultation, including economic analysis, he said. I actually couldnt just change it without going through a similar process, and the whole point of the Climate Change Commission is to provide independent and expert advice. I thought it would be undermining of the commission, which had only just been established, to go another way. The Climate Change Commissions creation had been delayed by political negotiations to get bipartisan support for the Zero Carbon Act. Covid-19 has further delayed its work. It will report back on the Paris target in May, after which the Government will make a decision about whether to change the pledge. The commission will also recommend a series of emissions budgets. While their advice was that New Zealands pledge fell short, the analysts suggested a seemingly painless way to be compliant with a 1.5C goal: splitting the target into separate reductions for methane and carbon dioxide. The Zero Carbon Act already splits the gases, but the Paris target doesnt. When considered via a split gas approach our NDC is likely to be consistent with 1.5C, the advice reads. New Zealands current promise to other nations under the Paris Agreement is to cut emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. The pledge is expressed as a budget for the whole decades emissions, and all gases are encompassed by a single target, with methane and nitrous oxide converted into carbon-dioxide equivalents. The budget requires keeping emissions to 600 million tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent for the whole decade from 2021-2030. In round numbers, that gives us an average allowance of 60m tonnes a year. Since New Zealand currently produces over 70m tonnes a year (in net terms), yearly emissions will need to be well under 60m by 2030 to meet the target. In all, the budget requires shaving off close to 100m tonnes off over the decade more than a years worth of emissions. But to be in line with the IPCC trajectories for a 1.5C maximum, wed need to slough off another 85m, capping emissions at more like 516m tonnes for the decade almost double the reduction currently planned, Shaw was told. The analysts added New Zealand would look much better in the eyes of observers and could be consistent with 1.5C if we stopped lumping in methane with carbon dioxide. The gist of their argument was because our Paris pledge mingles all gases together, our softer domestic policy targets for methane make the comparatively steep carbon targets look weak. New Zealands Paris pledge converts every tonne of methane into an equivalent of carbon dioxide, based on its heating effect over 100 years. That approach is in line with the accepted international practice, and its how New Zealand reports its annual emissions to the UN. But converting methane to carbon dioxide-equivalents can distort the true impact, as the officials noted. In reality, making cuts to methane now would cool the climate by 2030. Much of the existing methane would break down within the decade, lowering the thermostat. Yet when that methane is expressed in carbon dioxide-equivalents, it appears on paper as if cutting methane would let the mercury keep rising because thats what would happen if the gas in question was truly carbon dioxide. This difference, along with pressure on behalf of farmers, is why the Government imposed a light interim cut for methane in the Zero Carbon Act, of 10 per cent from 2017 levels by 2030. For the first five years of this decade, there will be no methane cuts at all, because agricultural limits dont begin until 2025. Theres scientific support for treating methane more lightly: while researchers debate what level of ongoing methane emissions is defensible , they are united in saying methane neednt get to zero, unlike carbon. But with deeper cuts to methane off the table, the bulk of the cuts needed to stay inside the Paris budget will need to come from shrinking carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, which, like methane, is mostly produced by farming. As a result of the comparatively low level of reduction in biogenic methane emissions, emissions of all other gases will need to reduce significantly more in order to meet the NDC target, the officials wrote to Shaw. The analysts estimated how much carbon would need to fall. Of the 600m-tonne allowance for the decade, methane will take up about 311m, even with the 10 per cent reduction. That leaves 290m for carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide to share, they calculated. By the analysts estimate, long-lived gases will need to reduce by 43 per cent below 2017 levels by 2030, even after incorporating forestry removals though the advice notes that estimate is highly sensitive to updates. Given New Zealand has very little coal-fired electricity generation to cull, our assessment is that New Zealands NDC is already highly ambitious, the analysts said. In essence, they suggested the packaging of the targets was a PR-fail. The memos complain that NGOs and the likes of Climate Action Tracker often misunderstand New Zealands NDC because they only compare headline numbers, noting New Zealands media often repeats these harsh assessments. (Climate Action Tracker objects to this assessment, saying it understands the target it just doesnt think its adequate). An all-gases approach does not adequately reflect the contribution in our NDC and can lead to invalid assessment of our contribution, the advice reads. The Paris Agreement gives countries enough flexibility to use a split gas target if they wish, the officials say. What happens now is a question for the Climate Commission.