How is New Zealand tracking on its Kyoto commitments to date?
Not well, according to the New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990-2005 (www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/climate).
According to this Ministry for the Environment (MfE) publication, New Zealand’s emissions in 2005 were 77.2 Mt of CO2e, that is, 15.3 Mt (or 24.7%) more than in 1990. Note that this figure does not include CO2 removal by forest carbon sinks.
Net removals of CO2 through forest sinks increased from 19.0 Mt CO2 in 1990 to 24.5 Mt CO2 in 2005.
On the face of it, it’s an awkward look for New Zealand when the UK is likely to be 14% below 1990 levels during CP1. Also, the Kyoto Protocol requires Annex I countries to have made demonstrable progress towards meeting their commitments by 2005.
Meantime New Zealand is forecast to produce on average net emissions of 69.7 Mt/yr of CO2e during 2008-2012. That’s 8.24 Mt/yr over and above 1990 emissions levels of 61.5 Mt. Added together, this provides a widely-publicised figure of 41.2 Mt of CO2e of excess emissions over the five years.
How to reconcile the Greenhouse Gas Inventory result of 15.3 Mt of excess emissions (compared to 1990 levels) with the 45.5 Mt of excess emissions during CP1? Recall that the 45.5 Mt is over five years, whereas the 15.3 Mt is just one year’s data. Multiply 15.3 by five and you get a notional figure of 76.5 Mt, which seems a lot. The difference between the 45.5 Mt and the 76.5 Mt is that forest sinks have not been taken into account in the larger figure.
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