Greenhouse gas emissions up 5%

Stuff reports:

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from industries and households rose by 4.8 per cent in the June 2021 quarter, according to Stats NZ data.

This follows an earlier 1.4 per cent increase in the March quarter and was mainly due to a large increase in the use of coal to produce energy.

The largest contributors to the increase were electricity, gas, water, and waste services up 16 per cent; transport, postal, and warehousing up 19 per cent; and agriculture, forestry, and fishing up 0.9 per cent (seasonally adjusted).

Environmental economic accounts manager Stephen Oakley said the electricity, gas, water, and waste services sectors reached a record quarterly level of 2927 kilotonnes of GHG emissions (seasonally adjusted), up 412 kilotonnes on the March quarter.

“This is mainly due to a large increase in coal use for electricity generation,” he said. 

The Government announced two goals – net zero emissions and 100% renewable generation for electricity, and they are going backwards on both of them.

In June 2017 the greenhouse gas emissions for electricity, gas, water and waste was 2,029 kT. In June 2021 it was 2,927 kT – an increase of 44%.

That ban on further natural gas exploration is really going well, with coal imports at record levels.