Just a few weeks ago New Zealand’s aviation and tourism sectors were riding high. Summer flights were up 7% on the previous year, and returned to their pre-Covid levels for the first time.
Dec/Jan jet fuel up 7% in a year, up 57% since 2013/14. Source: MBIE Energy Quarterly
All last year there were stories like “Christchurch Airport is entering a period of strong growth, with new and expanded air routes set to deliver a significant boost to Canterbury’s tourism, freight and export sectors” (The Press, June 2025). As late as 3 February this year, the CEO of Tourism Industry Aotearoa was saying “International arrivals are edging upwards, confidence has lifted across the sector, and operators are reporting strong bookings.”
On 3 March, three days after the war began, Tourism Minister Louise Upston said, “The Government welcomes data out today showing New Zealand’s tourism sector continues to go from strength to strength, driving billions into the economy.”
New Zealand wasn’t alone. Willie Walsh, director of the global airline body IATA, said in January, “2025 saw demand for air travel grow by 5.3% with international demand growing by 7.1% and domestic by 2.4%. This returns industry growth to align with historical growth patterns after the robust post-COVID rebound.”
The only dark clouds were the need for decarbonisation (“Governments whose economies grow because of aviation and whose citizens thirst for connectivity need to provide the supportive fiscal policy framework to rapidly accelerate progress”) and supply chain issues (“People clearly wanted to travel more, but airlines were continually disappointed with unreliable delivery schedules for new aircraft and engines, maintenance capacity constraints, and resultant cost increases.”)
IATA forecast essentially permanent growth of 4.2% per year. This far exceeds any ability of the industry to reduce emissions and is a recipe for continually increasing damage.
Source: MBIE Energy Quarterly, Stats NZ
Setting aside decarbonisation – each flight departing New Zealand uses 200 litres of jet fuel per passenger, emitting 500 kg of CO2, a number that has not budged in 20 years – how is that desire to travel more holding up?
Pretty well, it seems. Just yesterday (1 April – but apparently they weren’t joking), RNZ reported:
Despite the conflict and dire news about air travel price surges due to fuel costs, New Zealand consumers are still booking long-haul flights to places like Europe, says Julie White, chief executive of the Travel Agents’ Association of New Zealand.
Swapping the warmth of the northern hemisphere in July for a Queenstown skiing holiday is of little interest to some travel consumers at the moment, White says.
New Zealanders, in general, might have a bit of domestic travel fatigue due to the restrictions during Covid. Many since the Covid years have made travel an essential item in their budget rather than a discretionary one, says White.
“We’re still experiencing strong demand. Kiwis are really wanting to travel, and they are really hoping this is going to be over soon, so they are still booking travel.”
This is delusional and irresponsible. The Ministry of Transport’s own dashboard shows that the price of jet fuel has already more than doubled, which would add at least 30% to future ticket prices even before flight cancellations kick in.
Travelers could very easily find themselves stranded overseas with cancelled flights and no insurance. The BBC and Financial Times are reporting that the UK’s final shipment of jet fuel from the Middle East is arriving this week, with no more booked or on the water. Tourism professor Susanne Becken from Griffiths University wrote
Tourism’s dependence on (affordable and available) jet fuel has long been a known issue; yet the sector choses to ignore this massive challenge. All the discussions around decarbonisation aviation are much more than climate action, they are an insurance for the very future of this industry.
During the Covid pandemic I made the suggestion that countries should look into ‘minimum viable networks’ to find out what level of aviation is considered essential as opposed to discretionary. This would be very sensible risk management, and would – by default – include crises such as global pandemics (i.e. how much lack of connectivity can a country afford), climate change (managing the long-term risk of climate collapse), or fuel constraints.
Although all countries will be affected, New Zealand is more exposed than many, given our remote location, habituated frequent flying, and large tourist industry. (Pacific Islands are even more at risk.) International travel shut down once before, only six years ago. It looks like we are in for a re-run.
New Zealand’s latest quarterly energy report shows electricity production was above 90% renewable and emissions from generation fell to the lowest level on record.
But it also shows New Zealand’s oil consumption, which had fallen markedly after the COVID pandemic, has crept back up to reach its highest quarterly level in five years.
Oil now comprises its highest quarterly share of New Zealand’s overall energy emissions on record.
Of the total carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, 77% were from oil (mostly used for transport), 12% from industrial and domestic gas usage, 6% from coal, and just 5% from electricity generation.
Source: MBIE Energy Quarterly
Developing a coordinatedenergy strategy to reduce oil dependence would not only provide an effective climate response, but also protect New Zealand from recurring oil price and supply shocks.
The previous government had committed to a comprehensive strategy to transition to a renewable energy system in New Zealand’s first emissions reduction plan in 2022.
During two previous periods of high oil prices, New Zealand missed the chance to weaken the country’s dependence on oil.
The 1978 oil shock was a severe hit to the economy; New Zealand’s oil consumption did not recover to its previous level until 1990.
The soaring oil prices hit New Zealand at a time of extensive government control of the economy under the National government of Robert Muldoon, whose “Think Big” strategy included building an experimental plant to produce petrol from natural gas.
This was intended to build energy independence, but unfortunately it proved to be costly and ineffective.
The 2008 financial crisis also involved extreme oil price spikes and a prolonged recession. Oil consumption did not recover until 2015. One planned response was to introduce fuel economy standards for new cars – a form of regulation already in place in most OECD countries.
Had these standards been put in place and gradually strengthened over time, New Zealand would now be in a much better place, with less pollution and less economic dependence on oil.
However, a change in government in late 2008 led to the cancellation of the planned standards. New Zealand now uses nearly twice as much transport oil per capita as the UK, where such standards have been in place since 2001.
New law changed NZ’s trajectory
The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act of 2019 was a turning point. Before that, total fossil fuel emissions were flat or trending up. Afterwards, a wave of investments in renewable electricity, in the decarbonisation of industry and in low-emission transport turned the trend around.
This was perhaps not just due to the specifics of the act, which includes five-yearly carbon budgets, but to strong pro-climate signalling from the government of the day.
Under the current government, both messaging and policy have changed. As Climate Change Minister Simon Watts has repeatedly stressed, New Zealand’s main climate tool is now the emissions trading scheme (ETS). However, this now covers only 35% of net emissions and is not an effective way to reduce oil use.
At the current price of NZ$40 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions, the ETS adds only nine cents per litre to the price of petrol. Given New Zealand’s high car dependency, this has virtually no effect on existing drivers or on car buyers.
How to cut oil use in transport
In New Zealand, 80% of oil goes into air and land transport. An oil transition plan really means a transport plan.
Source: MBIE Energy Quarterly
There is a known way to turn off the tap on oil. The “avoid, shift, improve” framework is supported by three decades of experience.
Changing work patterns such as shorter work weeks and working-from-home arrangements can help avoid unnecessary travel. Better infrastructure for walking and cycling and public transport helps to shift transport and dramatically reduce oil use.
The remaining private vehicle travel can be improved through electrification. This requires a combination of incentives and stronger emissions standards, as the International Energy Agency reinforced this week.
At present, New Zealand is still moving in the wrong direction. Over the past decade, the total distance driven by light vehicles increased by 20%, while the distance driven by utility vehicles is up 55%.
Each utility vehicle has 50% higher carbon emissions than a (fossil-fueled) passenger car. These trends have outweighed the improvements from the rise of hybrid and electric vehicles.
There is a limit to how quickly New Zealand’s fleet can realistically be electrified. For a country with the world’s highest rate of car ownership, mass purchasing of new cars is not a good transport solution by itself.
But in any event, phasing out fossil fuels is required for a safe future and should happen in ways that build energy resilience and independence.
Yes, we should have weaned off oil long ago. The oil shocks of the 1970s would have been a good time to start. Failing that, the 2007 oil price spike that was one of the triggers of the Global Financial Crisis. Never mind. The third best time to start is now.
New Zealand’s oil consumption for road transport has nearly doubled since 1990. Preliminary data from MBIE suggests another 4% rise between 2023 and 2025.
Industry is doing it tough.
What are the drivers of this increase? More cars, obviously, but also more people, with each person driving further.
Here’s the breakdown over the past decade:
Impact on road transport CO2 emissions from change in…
Change between 2013 & 2023
Population:
+16.1%
Fuel economy of fossil-fueled car fleet:
–15.6%
Distance driven in light vehicles, per person:
+4.5%
Fleet shift from cars to utes:
+4.5%
Proportion of electric driving
–1.7%
Total change in CO2 emissions
+4.2%
Utility vehicles emit 50% more than (non-hybrid) cars – 259 gCO2/km vs 175 gCO2/km – and the shift is at least partly cultural, with the twin-cab ute becoming a social norm. Utes now comprise 18% of the light vehicle fleet, do 23% of the kilometres, form 26% of sales, and emit 31% of light vehicle CO2. If that shift continues, as it appears to be doing, it forms a significant headwind to emissions reduction.
Lately, although the shift to hybrids is reducing emissions, fossil-fueled cars themselves are getting heavier and higher-emission.
What’s up with those diesel cars at 231 gCO2/km?! The average petrol hybrid at 121 gCO2/km does not even meet the 2026 fuel economy standard of 108 gCO2/km. Averaged over all sales, the target is being exceeded by 27 gCO2/km.
Overall, the picture is grim. On balance the country is no better prepared for an oil price or supply shock than we were in the 1970s – oil imports were 2.5% of GDP last year, compared to 1.8% in 1974. But in one respect, we do have an advantage. We know how we failed to seize the opportunity previously, and we know what will work this time.
New Zealand still has a choice, however. It already powers lights, hospitals and factories with renewable electricity. It could have powered a diverse transport system the same way, and it still can.
Every bus electrified, every cycleway built, every train funded is a direct reduction in exposure to the next crisis. The question now is whether New Zealanders begin to treat their car dependence not as a lifestyle choice but as a strategic liability.
As 2025 winds to a close, I am writing from the Rodney district north of Auckland – Rodney being famous as the home of the Rodney & Otamatea Times which published this banger in 1912. (Andy Revkin of the New York Times brought it to wide attention in 2016.)
The 1912 article had been rediscovered a few years earlier thanks to “Papers Past”, a project of the National Library of New Zealand to scan old newspapers, that began in 2001 and continues to this day. As for the Rodney Times, founded in 1901, it ceased publication in July this year, along with many other New Zealand community newspapers.
The “coal consumption” story itself is a caption from an article by Frances Molina in the March 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics, a model popular science article of the day. It concludes with a reflective passage that could stand today:
This rapid publication of worldwide science news was possible because New Zealand had been connected to the rest of the world by undersea telegraph cable in 1876. Other science news on 14 August 1912: the world’s deepest bore dug in Silesia at 7348 ft; nickel kitchen implements; how camphor is made; a skipping machine which turns the rope and counts your skips (I can see that being a winner today); a Swiss proposal to build a tunnel linking the Black and Caspian Seas (an idea that reappeared in 2025); and (this one is real genius) a way of preventing buckets of water spilling on trains, namely a wooden lid.
I dabble a little in social media and, in my experience at least, what fires engagement is not outrage but good news, like New Zealand showing a possibly record-breaking run of days with zero coal- or gas-fired electricity:
No coal or gas-fired electricity reported in New Zealand on 20-21 or 23-31 December 2025. (There’s still about 0.9% of fossil co-generation, not shown.) Source: em6
Or this one, which also went off, showing super-exponential growth of solar power in New Zealand:
NZ grid-tied solar power grew 31% in 2023, 52% in 2024, 61% in 2025. Long may it continue. Still only 1.9% of total power generation to there is plenty of remaining scope. The 4th quarter of 2025 is likely to come in at the lowest emissions and highest renewable proportion on record. Utility solar was 41.2 GWh in Q2, 62.9 in Q3; distributed solar 128 in Q2, 148.5 in Q3. Source: MBIE Energy Quarterly. The lifecycle emissions of solar are 99% less than coal.
But posts showing bad news tend to do poorly:
Emissions from domestic fossil fuel combustion to September 2025. 70% of these are from oil, which (although still below peak) are flat.
However, that last graph is perhaps the most important, for today is the last day of the first emissions budget period, which ran from 2022 to 2025. The system of emissions budgets was set up by the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019, which unleashed a wave of low-carbon investment across the country. Even Fonterra, which only a couple of years earlier was still obscuring their role as the country’s largest coal burner, began to change. Officially, thanks to some dodgy accounting, we are on track to meet the first budget, although the final reckoning (including agriculture and forests) will not be in for another year.
We do, however, have nearly complete data for energy emissions. These show a dramatic change after the Zero Carbon Act changes had time to kick in:
2018-19
60.9 Mt CO2
2% below 2007 peak
2020-21
59.5 Mt CO2
–2%
2022-23
54.0 Mt CO2
–9% (!!!)
2024-25
53.9 Mt CO2
no change; progress halted
The progress in 2022-23, the first half the budget period, is impressive. (However, 1/3 of the reduction was due to the closure of the Marsden Point oil refinery, which shouldn’t count as the emissions were shifted offshore.) Progress appears to have halted in the second half, and although climate action hasn’t completely halted, the constant barrage of anti-climate action and rhetoric from the government is having an effect.
Which brings me to my point. Top-10 lists are a year-end classic. But in this case it seems more appropriate to nominate the…
Government’s bottom 10 climate actions of 2025
And how hard it is to choose. I’ll start by ruling out things that are merely said, like Shane Jones’s comment on anti-coal protesters that “The high tide mark of this unicorn kissing green drivel is over,” or two out of three Government coalition partners proposing to leave the Paris Agreement. It’s hard to draw the line, though, as words have an effect too – like the Climate Change Minister telling Federated Farmers that we have no legal obligation or liability to meet the Paris targets. I’m looking at real actions that will likely lead to the most actual damage, either direct (by increasing pollution) or indirect (by fostering division). (A few sins of omission will also crop up.)
10. ETS failure. The Government may say the ETS is its main tool to control emissions, but the market says otherwise – the price of carbon credits has dropped from a high of $87 in September 2022 to $37 now. Each Government announcement seems to result in a slump: doubling the free allocation to Reio Tinto, rejecting advice to review free allocations, uncoupling the ETS from the Paris target, cutting the number of companies that must report their emissions by 55%. Since 2022, none of the 12 ETS auctions have cleared completely; 2 have partially cleared.
9. No action on aviation emissions. The First Emissions Reduction Plan included an item to prepare a plan to decarbonise domestic aviation. (While other actions were repeated, this one was not.) There has been no work on this. Instead, the group Sustainable Action Aotearoa (set up by the ERP) has been sidelined and their work on updating our State Action Plan for the International Civil Aviation Organisation stopped.
8. The Carbon Neutral Public Sector got the chop. This one is a repeat, as National already chopped it once before, in 2009.
7. No Energy Plan. In ERP1, we were promised a comprehensive Energy Plan by December 2024. There is no sign of it yet, only some brief, piecemeal documents and a series of anti-climate energy initiatives. (LNG terminal, anyone?)
6. Offshore oil & gas exploration to be restarted, with a $200 million public sweetener and going gentler on the industry’s clean-up requirements.
5. Overseas climate financing, largely to the Pacific, which was $450 million in 2024, was cut to $100 million.
4. An end to bipartisanship. In major changes announced for the formerly bipartisan Zero Carbon Act, the Climate Change Commission will no longer provide advice on Emissions Reduction Plans, and the Government will be able to amend Plans at any time without consultation. Between the loss of bipartisanship and the erosion of the system of checks, balances, and communication between the Commission, Government, and public, the Act is under threat.
3. Clean Vehicle Standard gutted. This one is close to my heart as I have been following this story at least since the incoming John Key government killed fuel economy standards for the first time, in 2009. We all know how the feebate was boosted into a fake culture war, and how the Standards themselves were then drastically weakened for future years. Now the penalties that car importers must pay for not meeting the standards have themselves been cut by 80% for 2026 & 2027 – the same method used by Donald Trump to get rid of US standards. The move was supported by patsy modelling from the Ministry, which claimed the move would have almost no effect on emissions. The industry had taken no action at all to try and meet the targets, instead seeing a way forward through lobbying. It appears that any pro-climate faction within the industry bodies has been defeated, and the hand of the industry to dictate its own regulations strengthened. The extra costs in fuel and climate damage run to many hundreds of millions of dollars. EV sales, which fell 70% in 2024, are stagnant, and road transport emissions (which fell after Covid, partly as a result of working from home) are tracking up again.
2. No action on CO2 target. The Climate Commission advised the Government to strengthen the 2050 CO2 target to net –20 MtCO2 per year, including international aviation and shipping. All advice was rejected.
And the very bottom Government climate action of 2025 is…
1. 2050 target weakened. The Zero Carbon Act was amended under urgency with no public input – even the public gallery was closed – to weaken the 2050 methane target under a spurious “no additional warming” excuse. As Christina Hood has written, this increases our total emissions by the equivalent of 500 years of operation of the Huntly power station and takes our 2050 target nearly back to 2011 levels of ambition.
Look at that, out of numbers already! I didn’t even have time to discuss the ongoing saga over the lip service paid to our 2030 Paris Agreement target, or over our new 2035 target which fails on multiple levels.
I may be writing from Rodney, but I live in Manawatū, where our property has just suffered its most catastrophic wind damage in at least three decades. Quoted in the Otago Daily Times about the catastrophic wind storm that swept Southland and South Otago on 23 October, Dr Nathan Melia said that weather and climate models struggle to predict such events, but that “studies of European wind storms indicate that climate change will increase the frequency of strong jets.”
I’m sorry I don’t have more good news for you to round out 2025. I will leave the last work to James Renwick, quoted in the above ODT article:
Asked if he can think of anything positive New Zealand is doing about climate change, anything to feel proud of, Victoria University of Wellington climate scientist Prof James Renwick looks bemused.
“As a former climate change commissioner, and an academic in the field, I can’t really.
“We were doing some great things a few years ago, but the current government has pulled back on the good things the previous government set up. And now they’re gradually undermining the commission and the Zero Carbon Act, and the agriculture sector is getting an absolute free ride. But they’re spending, what, $50 billion on new roads?”
A graphic from the previous Assessment, conducted in 2023 under the previous government.
[The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is undertaking its triennial Strategic Foreign Policy Assessment. The Ministry writes: “The Assessment will examine the international context New Zealand will navigate in the decade to 2036, and what this means for us. The Assessment will consider the most important changes and drivers we see happening in the world, what they mean for New Zealand, what those changes mean for our relationships, and what they mean for our region — the Pacific and the Indo-Pacific.” Heidi O’Callahan’s submission is below. She would love to read other people’s submissions that tackle other (climate-exacerbated) topics, like overfishing, war, peacekeeping, humane treatment of refugees, terrorism, the scam economies and cyber security.
What are the big international issues you think New Zealand will have to navigate over the next 10 years, and what are the opportunities you think New Zealand can pursue?
The big international problems we must navigate are biodiversity loss and climate change, as well as the poverty, inequity, migration, societal breakdown and geopolitical instability exacerbated by these problems. To navigate these issues successfully requires accepting the root cause: an unsustainable economic paradigm of exploitation centred on the pursuit of economic growth.
Above all, our economy needs to operate within planetary limits; it must become more circular, socially-positive, and ecologically regenerative. Our best opportunities for international trade lie in low-carbon, high-value intellectual innovation. The current industries of bulk commodities (timber, milk products, meat, etc) and international tourism must be scaled back significantly. The scale of these industries cannot be justified on a climate basis, and their pollution and transport impacts are directly damaging to New Zealanders’ health, accessibility and freedoms.
What do you consider New Zealand’s foreign policy needs to do to protect and advance our interests in the world over the next 10 years?
Our government needs to act domestically to protect and advance our interests, if our foreign policy is to have a chance of helping us on the international front. We are currently witnessing the opposite; the government is introducing policy and legislation that is directly undermining our safety and wellbeing. This is happening across all spheres: Te Tiriti, transport, agriculture, education, health, climate, housing and social wellbeing are examples. In climate alone, the government has 1) unethically scrapped policies designed to reduce emissions, 2) reduced the climate targets on the basis of no evidence, 3) decided against bringing agriculture into the ETS and 4) indicated they will baulk at paying the bill for international credits to cover emissions that such a climate-ignorant set of actions creates (despite buying credits being the centrepiece of the National Party’s otherwise non-existent climate policy.)
MFAT cannot operate with any integrity on the international stage alongside such appalling government backsliding. So, while New Zealand’s foreign policy needs to support international climate regulations and rules that force wealthier countries like us to reduce emissions rapidly and pay for our past damage, it is hard for MFAT staff to be taken seriously when representing a hypocritical government.
Nor will MFAT succeed at advancing our economic interests or pursuing opportunities; the government’s climate denial will exclude us from markets and keep us out of key international decision-making.
It’s not just in climate we are becoming a laughing stock. The GPS on Transport attracted derision and ridicule from international experts. The UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination highlighted how quickly New Zealand is going backwards under this racist government.
New Zealand’s foreign policy should advance real climate justice, climate action, the commitment to international agreements on improving transport safety, reducing racial, gender and age discrimination, the pursuit of improving the wellbeing of people in all countries (especially indigenous people, and the educational and health opportunities for girls and women), the promotion of sustainable practices and ecological regeneration, and above all, the dismantling of the economic paradigm that has led to the destruction of water, soil, air, natural and human resources.
But to pursue advancing these issues, diplomats should be able to draw on robust examples of domestic New Zealand practices, with truth and integrity. Currently, they cannot.
For you, your community, organisation or business: What matters most in the world beyond New Zealand? What places and international relationships matter most? What do you think are New Zealand’s greatest strengths and weaknesses in our international engagement?
We should pursue strong and respectful relationships with our Pacific neighbours. One important matter “in the world beyond New Zealand” is reducing hypermobility. The majority of people in the world have never set foot in an aeroplane. Yet a small minority continue to fly, with enormous climate impact, and we are all subsidising them to do so. Flying is one of the most inequitable and destructive activities humans can indulge in. Our foreign policy should seek international mechanisms and agreements to achieve substantial reductions in aviation. As a country with apparently much to lose (but also much to gain in other ways) from reducing international aviation, New Zealand is actually in a strong position to lead this international work, through demonstration of substantial systemic change. New Zealand needs to shrink our international tourism industry, and take steps to prevent our wealthy people from travelling so much. Our government must stop promoting New Zealand as a destination, stop allowing airport expansions, introduce taxes to prevent recreational and other avoidable flights, and support the transition to sustainable industries, including sustainable bike-, rail-, and coach-based domestic tourism.
The international relationships that matter most are in implementing and honouring the various UN conventions and agreements – on traffic safety, on climate, on wellbeing and health, etc. It seems, currently, that this government is rejecting the authority of the UN, willingly forgetting what atrocities led to the creation of the UN in the first place!
Currently, the most important international relationships my community has is with experts from other countries to help us try to make gains in evidence-based transport, agricultural, energy and climate policies for New Zealand. Currently, much community effort is being spent trying to undo or mitigate aggressive and regressive government actions that have no basis in evidence or accepted practices. It is very sad to see this waste of human toil and effort, which could be being used to build a better New Zealand.
Also important are the relationships with international experts on democracy. New Zealand’s poor democratic practices are stifling our progress. Deliberation and informed decision-making are the basis of good democracy. New Zealand will not thrive and we will not make the most of opportunities while most decisions are being made on the basis of misinformed opinions, corporate lobbying, misguided pursuits of economic growth, and populism.
New Zealand’s foreign policy should promote the international development of a body of knowledge about modern democracy. Such an international resource would be useful for all kinds of decision-making, and could help dispel the damaging myth that “one person one vote” is a sufficient basis for democracy.
New Zealand’s greatest strength in our international engagement is the goodwill built up over many decades by good diplomacy and leadership. While there has been a low bar for what a “good” country should do to improve the welfare of poorer countries and to pursue development goals, at least New Zealand often tried to be one of the more enlightened OECD countries. Internationally, the standard must improve. Unfortunately, New Zealand is not stepping up. The goodwill is evaporating rapidly.
Our biggest weakness in international relationships is the lack of integrity in our domestic policies.
Do you have any other thoughts on the international context you would like the team to consider?
How the climate changes depends on emissions right now and over the next few years. Net zero by 2050 is necessary but by then it will be largely irrelevant; the important point is the emissions trajectory to get there. Bureaucrats and leaders believe they face difficult decisions currently and rarely prioritise emissions reductions. Yet the different climate pathways will determine the options in front of future decision-makers, who will have fewer resources to be able to draw upon, will be functioning in more urgent circumstances, and are likely to be working within weaker institutions.
When this is fully understood, it is clear that decision-making is unlikely to get any easier! We must stick to ethical action that will help decision-makers in the future. We must invest to pursue rapid and significant emissions reductions, and rapidly transform our systems so they are low carbon. We must acknowledge that the true social cost of carbon is orders of magnitude higher than what our ETS scheme uses; much larger than what Europe is using. We must be responsible international neighbours, and ensure poor countries don’t have to make decisions between climate action and social or economic health.
None of this can be delayed while climate deniers have their turn at power plays in politics. Quality foreign policy, in the absence of quality domestic policy, is akin to “polishing a turd”.
But climate impacts of flying are rarely mentioned, even though the government is currently considering whether or not to include emissions from international aviation and shipping in New Zealand’s net zero 2050 target, as recommended by the Climate Change Commission.
Emissions from New Zealand’s international aviation and shipping are equivalent to about 9% of the country’s net domestic emissions. Without action to reduce emissions from these sectors, they could grow to a third of domestic net emissions by 2050, according to the commission.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts is expected to announce a decision next month.
New Zealand’s action plan for aviation
In September, the newly established Interim Aviation Council released an aviation action plan. It covers regulation, innovation, economic growth and emissions.
The plan’s ambition is that New Zealand will be:
reducing the use of fossil fuels and transitioning to clean energy, in line with New Zealand’s target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
In a new report, we have analysed the plan in the context of New Zealand’s international commitments.
First, let’s backtrack to 2021 and New Zealand’s first emissions reduction plan. That also included work to decarbonise aviation by setting specific targets, implementing a sustainable aviation fuel mandate and establishing a public-private leadership body.
That body, Sustainable Aviation Aotearoa (SAA), was set up in 2022. But there is no word yet on the targets or mandate. The SAA has never published any minutes, work plans, calls for evidence or advice.
Its initial balance of public and private membership became skewed in favour of industry, with more airlines and oil companies (Airbus, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum, Z Energy, and Channel Infrastructure) joining the group than organisations representing the environment.
Of 49 members, only three (one from the Climate Change Commission and two from the Ministry for the Environment) have an environmental focus.
New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan, published last year, mentions aviation emissions only briefly, commenting that:
the government’s role is to facilitate industry discussions through existing forums, consider regulatory barriers and ensure New Zealand’s interests are represented on the international stage.
That statement is incorrect. The government’s role, as specified in the Climate Change Response Act, is to prepare sector-specific policies to reduce emissions. But the Climate Change Commission has reviewed these policies and found them to be inadequate – it found virtually all policy-driven goals to cut emissions were at risk of not being achieved.
International aviation is currently a large, unregulated source of emissions. In 2024, just the first outgoing legs of flights from New Zealand emitted 3.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to 12% of all domestic emissions from fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) combined.
States have committed to mapping out plans to cut aviation emissions and submit them to ICAO. New Zealand’s plan was already overdue in 2022. Although it appears the SAA has done some work on this, no plan has been submitted yet.
Plans from other countries, including the United Kingdom, give some idea of the challenge. They describe a mixture of low-carbon fuels, efficiency gains and offsetting – but add these won’t get us all the way.
Additional measures such as carbon removal and demand management will be required. The UK’s sustainable aviation fuel mandate began this year and will strengthen every year, with airlines facing penalties of about NZ$11 per litre for missing targets.
As the UK’s action plan notes:
Most options for aviation decarbonisation rely on new technology, the development and uptake of which is extremely uncertain, owing to the uncertain nature of technology readiness and cost of technology over time.
This is not the government’s task alone
Aviation is part of a wider system. Passengers, tourism operators, airports, airlines, fuel companies and the government all share responsibility for the sector’s requirement to cut emissions.
It appears Sustainable Aviation Aotearoa has not achieved its core purpose to “provide advice and coordination to accelerate the decarbonisation” of New Zealand’s aviation sector.
The Interim Aviation Council may be heading the same way. It has no environmental representation and assigns no actions to the Ministry for the Environment. Nor does it mention the regulation of emissions, which is the only way to simultaneously achieve environmental goals and lower uncertainty for investors.
As the permanent council is formed, it should operate openly and balance state, industry and public interests.
The author acknowledges the contribution by Paul Callister.
I was recently introduced to climate scientist James Dyke’s excellent newsletter, Eccentric Orbits, and the first article I read there opened with this:
This is our current moment: climate change by almost every single measure is getting worse while action on phasing out fossil fuels is slowing down or even stalling.
It’s true that climate change is getting worse – it will continue to get worse until emissions fall to near zero. But is action on phasing out fossil fuels really stalling?
There are certainly terrible developments in many places. But I want to point at that in some sectors in some countries, the phase-out of fossil fuels is definitely not stalling – it’s accelerating. Therefore, faster action is at least possible.
I decided to look at two sectors, coal and transport. They are both very large (being 40% and 20%, respectively, of global CO2 emissions, or 2 resp. 1 tonne of CO2 per person on average) but are very different.
To give an idea of the scale of the task, to phase out the burning of fossil fuels by 2050 means cutting emissions by about 0.2 tCO2 per person each year for the next 25 years. That is just the average value – cuts will have to be faster in the richer and higher-emitting countries.
Here are the 26 countries that have been phasing out coal the fastest over the past decade:
The average rate of decline for these countries was 0.18 tCO2 per year. Data: Our World in Data
For most of these countries, the phase out was twice as fast in 2018-2023 as in 2013-2018 – a dramatic acceleration. The 26 countries reduced coal emissions by an average of 0.18 tCO2/person every year for a decade.
EU emissions from coal fell another 13% in 2024 (not shown).
This was achieved through concerted policy and planning maintained over a long period.
Here are the five worse performers, for comparison:
Transport is very different to coal. The coal sector is dominated by a few large factories and most coal is used to generate electricity, where there are now cost-effective alternatives. Transport is highly dispersed and is shaped by social norms and by stupendous amounts of massive infrastructure – particularly so for cars. Transport emissions in many developed countries are dominated by private cars. The standard solution – travel less; walk, bicycle, and take public transport more; and electrify the remainder – all involve changes to people’s behaviour that can be contentious. (In France, when it was proposed to lower the speed limit on two-lane highways from 90 to 80 km/h, two-thirds of the speed cameras in the country were destroyed by protesters.)
New Zealand’s transport/climate policy is really only just getting started, and has undergone wild swings right out of the gate. So I was surprised to see that emissions from cars have not rebounded since Covid:
Source: UNFCCC + MBIE Energy Quarterly
The decline, about 15% (while population grew 7%), cannot be due solely to EVs or more efficient cars. Emissions of new cars are down by a quarter since 2019, but it takes time to turn over the fleet. The emissions of the average car on the road are only down 6%. So most of the decline must be due to something else. Driving less, due to working from home and the recession, are the two possibilities that come to mind. A surge in walking, biking, or public transport would have to be huge to make an effect of this size.
Even more surprising, the same thing appears to be happening in other countries too. New Zealander Robbie Andrew, who works at the Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway, has kindly added road transport emissions data for the sixty-odd countries that he tracks. Many countries (but not all) have shown sustained falls in car emissions.
Of course, the standout example is Norway, where virtually all new cars are now electric. Norway will continue to see car emissions fall steadily to zero.
The surprise is that falls in other countries are almost as large as in Norway. New Zealand reduced from 1.44 to 1.16 tCO2 per person over 2018-2023, Norway from 0.92 to 0.63. The average reduction for the top 10 performers is 0.23 tCO2 per person (21%) over 5 years. That is outstanding for what is supposed to be a tough sector. What’s less clear is whether these reductions (if they are due to behaviour change) can persist and accelerate in the future.
Canada’s emissions are understated here as (like the US) they list most SUVs as light trucks. See below or examine the full data.
The same effect is seen for all road transport emissions (including trucks, utes, and vans). Now the picture includes an impressive result from Finland (split data not available) and even the United States. (Data for the US is for 2022 as they haven’t submitted their 2023 data to the UN yet… we can guess why.) Norway now shows only the 6th biggest drop, behind Austria, Canada, Finland, New Zealand.
Sweden’s progress may stall as part of it was due to a strong biofuel mandate which has now been scaled back after a change of government, lowering fuel prices and increasing emissions. Norwegians are even crossing the border to get some of that cheaper fuel.
There’s a limit to what can be concluded from this kind of broad overview. Every country has a different emissions profile and different climate politics. But my takeaway is that fast phase-outs of fossil fuels – 5-10% per year, sustained and even accelerating over several years – have been shown to be possible, even in large and diverse sectors and in different countries.
Postscript added 10 July. For another way to slice it, here are the 10 countries that have increased their percentage of renewable energy (all energy, not just electricity) the fastest, ranked by average performance over the past decade. Progress is accelerating – the average increase for 2013-2018 was 0.4 percentage points per year (top 10, 1.3%), for 2018-2023 0.6 percentage points per year (top 10, 1.8%). At that rate getting to 100% will take 150 years. The rate needs to triple (ie match the current best countries) for safety. Note that the top 10 countries are very different to each other. They are large and small, rich and poor, coming off a low or a high base. It’s easy to be discouraged looking at the scale of the task, but progress is possible.
The Nelson and Tasman communities have invested $32 million in a new airport terminal. It’s very smart, and made of wood, but it’s designed to increase fossil fuel emissions.
At the same time, Nelson has suffered repeated devastation from extreme storms, at a time when the city is looking to reduce emissions. The community’s critical asset – the airport – can be a helpful part of the city’s climate action plans.
Aviation is booming, especially in the Asia–Pacific region. Air travel has reached record numbers both domestically and internationally, with further strong growth forecast over coming decades.
Despite the financial headwinds faced by New Zealand’s regional airlines, operators say that “passenger numbers on regional airlines have never been better”. “Passenger numbers are through the roof”, says Sounds Air boss Andrew Crawford in a Newsroom article. Once again flights in and out of New Zealand are increasing, helped by the New Zealand government promoting international tourism as a key driver of economic growth.
To support the growth, international airlines are expanding capacity.
Airports across New Zealand have also set in place expansion plans. An example is Nelson. The airport wants to see passenger numbers double from 900,000 to 1.8 million a year by 2050.
Despite unambiguous evidence of the devastating impacts of human-induced climate change, commitments to decarbonise aviation are stalling both here and overseas. The result is that aviation emissions continue to increase at a time when other sectors are working hard to reduce theirs. In just-published research, Daniel Scott and Stefan Gössling examine the UN World Tourism Organization’s climate declarations and conclude that there has been limited to no progress on 25 climate action pledges. They also evaluate commitments by the World Travel and Tourism Council, IATA, International Civil Aviation Organization, and individual airlines, finding that none of their self-set targets has been met.
So how can aviation contribute to tackling climate change when no practicable technology-based solutions are on the horizon?
This problem of aviation emissions is playing out in Nelson, one of New Zealand’s premier tourist destinations. While it is known for its sunny days, in recent years it has also suffered from damaging storms that are predicted to become more frequent and intense with climate change. The August 2022 storm event caused more than $80m of damage in the region, and a downpour in recent weeks led to flooding in downtown Nelson. Recognising the need to reduce emissions, Nelson City Council will soon meet to approve its climate change strategy, aiming to reduce gross emissions by at least 6.8% each and every year, in line with the government’s target.
That will require significant new investment. Who should pay for it? Should it be the community as a whole, or should those who are causing the problem contribute more? If Nelson airport proposes to double passenger numbers without any realistic plan to reduce emissions, is there a way of adopting the “polluter pays” principle and using revenue from flying to help decarbonise other parts of the local economy?
There is a way. The airport is jointly owned by Nelson City Council and neighbouring Tasman District Council. It recently invested $32m in a new terminal (catering for future growth, which means growth in pollution), with further expansion on the drawing board. A “polluter pays” levy of $20 per departing passenger – about 10% of the average ticket price – would raise $9m per year towards climate action by the two councils. Potential uses of such a levy include funding active and public transport, helping businesses to reduce emissions via electrification, supporting community solar power, and funding adaptation infrastructure. Much greater price increases by Air New Zealand in recent years, of between 30% and 300% depending on the route, have had no impact on passenger numbers, indicating an ability and a willingness to pay. While most New Zealanders need to fly sometimes, most flying is done by a small number of frequent flyers. Globally, 1% of the world’s population, the wealthiest frequent flyers, are responsible for 50% of aviation emissions. Therefore, a “polluter pays” levy acts as a progressive, pro-climate tax.
It is true that New Zealand also has the Emissions Trading Scheme. Passengers contribute about $3 per domestic flight via the ETS. Unfortunately, this does little to nothing towards reducing emissions. At present the money either goes to the government (which has cancelled most direct climate spending) or towards the mass planting of pine trees, which is commonly criticised as being an ineffective strategy with negative effects on biodiversity.
Airports and airlines themselves should welcome such a levy, which could be introduced nationwide. They could then point to the tangible community benefits of the levy and maintain their social licence to operate in an era when the aviation industry’s bold claims (“Net zero by 2050!”) amount to so much greenwashing.
It needs to be recognised that such a levy only buys the aviation industry a little time, and that the industry needs to either rapidly decarbonise or start reducing flights to meet climate targets. At present it is impossible to know if any of their plans for lower-emission flights will come about or have much of an impact on emissions. We hope they do. But hope alone is not enough; hope needs action, and the time for action is now.
Since 1978, diesel vehicles in New Zealand have paid road user charges (RUC) via a formula that depends on vehicle size and weight. Petrol vehicles currently pay a fuel tax instead of RUC. Electric vehicles (EVs) were granted an exemption from RUC in 2009 which expired on 1 April 2024. From that date, EV owners were required to pay RUC at the same rate as light diesel vehicles such as utes.
The government plans to shift all light vehicles onto RUC, possibly by 2027.
The current rate of fuel tax is 92 c/l. As one litre of petrol emits 2.31 kg of CO2 when burned, this is equivalent to a carbon charge of $398 per tonne of CO2. Petrol also incurs a carbon charge via the Emissions Trading Scheme (around $50/tCO2). Thus, removing fuel tax would reduce the carbon charge from $448 to $50 per tonne.
The effect would be that fuel costs of a small petrol hybrid would increase from 10c to 14c per kilometre, while that of a large car would fall from 25c to 23c. An EV would cost 11c per kilometre if charged at home on off-peak rates, or 23c per kilometre using public rapid chargers.
No country has tried this approach yet, although Iceland is planning to do so next year. Wisely, they will also double the carbon charge on petrol (from $100 to $200/tCO2) at the same time. They also retain other strong transport/climate policies. The purchase tax on a high-emitting car can be up to 65% of its value, and the government intends to ban the sale of fossil-fueled vehicles after 2030. In Iceland, 18% of the light vehicle fleet is already electric, compared to 3% in New Zealand.
Trucks are, of course, another large source of fossil fuel emissions that needs to be phased out. At present just 0.37% of the light commercial fleet is electric (mostly vans, not utes), while the figure for heavy vehicles is 0.46% (mostly buses, not trucks – although there are 194 electric heavy trucks in the country). Diesel trucks, utes, and vans are already exempt from fuel tax and pay RUC instead. Thus, they face a much lower effective carbon tax than cars, which could be a factor in their relatively slower improvement over time. (Diesel cars have actually been getting worse in recent years.)
However, they do get one big incentive – unlike cars, they are still exempt from RUC. The exemption ends on 1 January 2026. Perhaps this is a small change in the grand scheme of things. But it is one more change in the wrong direction, with an uncertain outcome – as far as I know, no analysis or investigation of any kind has been done on this. It is possible to design a scheme under which everyone contributes fairly according to their impact, and which still incentivizes change. At the start of this year, Denmark introduced RUC for trucks, under a formula which takes into account vehicle weight and CO2 emissions. (EV trucks get an 80% discount.) The effect has been phenomenal, with EV market share for trucks jumping straight up to 25%.
Emissions from cars are now back to 2001 levels, while trucks and utes are up 80% and still increasing. Prior to 2001 road transport emissions were not split by vehicle class. The decline in emissions from cars since 2018 is due more to behaviour change than cleaner vehicles – working from home, and less driving due to the recession.
Norway is seeing sustained reductions in emissions from cars, now that virtually all new cars sold are electric. Norway’s emissions from trucks are 1/3 less than New Zealand’s, but have yet to see significant reductions.
The third iteration of Heart Aerospace’s proposed new aircraft, now a 30-seat parallel hybrid.
Back in 2021 electric aircraft were a hot topic. Paul Callister and I looked at three startups (Heart Aerospace’s ES-19, Eviation’s Alice, and the Lilium Jet) to see if their claims stacked up. They all faced serious difficulties with weight, range (especially the reserve range required for safety), and unproven technology.
Two of the three (Lilium and Eviation,the latter pre-ordered by Air New Zealand) went bankrupt in February 2025, leaving only Heart Aerospace. Their ES-19 (pre-ordered by Sounds Air) has undergone two radical redesigns. In May 2024, an innovative wing strut was added and the range was halved to 200 km, extended by a serial kerosene generator (ideally used only as a reserve). Later, the wing strut disappeared, and two of the four electric motors were replaced by standard kerosene turboprops – essentially a parallel hybrid. No test aircraft has yet been flown or even built, but commercial operation is still promised for 2030.
On the policy front progress has been no better. The Climate Change Commission has made a strong recommendation to bring international aviation and shipping into New Zealand’s 2050 climate target; the government has yet to respond, and the Commission has no brief to look at the issue further. The public/private partnership Sustainable Aviation Aotearoa, established in 2022 as part of the first Emissions Reduction Plan, has yet to issue reports, advice, or communications of any kind.
This was the background in my mind as I prepared to address the Royal Aeronautical Society’s New Zealand Division on “Tech hopes for the aviation industry” on 29 May.
Please watch the video of the talk below, or read the slides.
Planetary Ecology 