At long last, CO2 turns the corner

By Robert McLachlan

Two years ago I wrote a post called “Why did New Zealand’s CO2 emissions blow out so spectacularly in 2019?” I ran the numbers and found that fossil CO2 emissions had risen 10% in just three years, to reach a record high. I had to look very hard to find any green shoots – such as the carbon price reaching a then record of $40/tonne, and plans for new wind farms. But overall, I concluded that

Throughout the country people were deciding to buy new fossil-fueled cars, boilers, and machinery far more than they were deciding to get rid of them. Away from the world of elections, policy reviews, school strikes, and opinion pieces, it was business as usual for three years… the big four, road transport, aviation, electricity, and food processing, that are so large, that have performed so poorly, and that have so much scope for transformation, are where we need to look for change.

Now the official data for 2021 is available and we can update the picture. Of course, Covid complicates things enormously. And each year the data for earlier years is recalculated; it turns out that 2019 was not quite so bad as it looked initially.

I’ve kept the two years examined previously (2016 and 2019) and added the new data for 2021, together with the base year adopted by the UN, 1990.

Fossil CO2 emissions (kilotonnes)	1990	2016	2019	2021	change ’19-’21
Road transport	6659	12394	13006	12555	-451
Electricity	3485	3056	4206	4403	197
Food processing (dairy)	1663	2721	3094	2787	-307
Metal industry (70% steel, 30% aluminium)	1758	2251	2236	2260	24
Residential buildings	1344	1658	1721	1740	19
Agricultural industry, forestry, and fishing	1212	1370	1620	1472	-148
Mining, construction & other industry	1324	1022	1300	1310	10
Chemicals (mostly methanol)	535	1990	1649	1278	-371
Commercial buildings	878	996	1242	1184	-58
International aviation	1322	3274	3861	916	-2945
Agriculture (50% lime, 50% urea)	336	998	1021	909	-112
Domestic aviation	940	919	1016	818	-198
Oil refining	779	847	882	729	-153
Fugitive fossil fuel emissions	459	1151	912	705	-207
Non-metallic minerals: industrial processes	562	727	618	529	-89
Non-metallic minerals: energy (cement, lime, glass)	439	437	569	392	-177
International shipping	1027	943	1008	335	-673
Pulp, paper, and print	507	406	441	300	-141
Manufacture of solid fuel	1715	290	350	253	-97
Domestic shipping	253	267	329	201	-128
Iron and steel & non-ferrous industries	154	155	177	138	-39
Rail transport	78	129	127	118	-9
Chemical industry (hydrogen, ammonia)	175	191	183	61	-122
Total CO2	27604	38192	41568	35393	-6175

While we have a way to go to get back to 1990 levels, at least we’re heading in the right direction. A fall of 15% in two years (only half of which is due to the drop in international transport) is impressive. The big question is: how much of this is due to Covid, and how much is the beginning of a long-term trend?

The Delta outbreak took up much of the final third of 2021, with Auckland in particular undergoing a long lockdown.

Of the “big four”, road transport emissions have eased off a little, and there are signs that working from home continues to the present. The clean car standard gets a lot of attention, and hybrid and electric car sales have skyrocketed, but this remains a tiny effect for now. As I wrote two years ago, “Despite the phrase “mode shift” being seen more and more frequently, there is not a lot of it about yet… there are still major forces pushing emissions higher, while big battles over mode shift lie ahead.”

In 2021, the electricity sector was still in the throes of the “Indonesian coal” crisis, which eased off in 2022 with record high renewable shares (95% in the 4th quarter). There was one dairy factory conversion from coal to wood late in 2020, at Te Awamutu (cutting emissions by 89 kilotonnes); I’m not aware of any more conversions in 2021. Aviation of course dropped enormously, but recovered steadily throughout 2022 with nothing in place yet to restrain it.

So, yes, it’s great to see a reduction in emissions – especially in fossil fuel emissions, which have to be eliminated entirely. But as for the longed-for tipping point, where all industries, planners, individuals, and voters know what they have to do and are out there doing it – I don’t think we’re quite there yet.