There was an interesting article in Stuff (reprinted from Newsroom) Overseas doubts grow over NZ’s climate commitment (9 Dec 20). It talks about NZ’s allies not being pleased with our progress on emissions. It compared 1990 levels with today’s, screeching that NZ was 50% above its emissions from 30 years ago and showed other first world countries had net reductions. It didn’t point out that NZ’s population had increased by a large amount over that period, as had its ruminant dairy herd. At no time did it compare emissions on a ‘per capita’ basis.
The biggest impact though, is on the choice of starting point. It is likely that much of NZ’s non-transport energy use in 1990 came from renewable sources (hydro and geo-thermal) and natural gas used for heating, so we started from a low point (comparatively). The exceptions being coal-fired power stations like Huntly and Otahuhu. Other ‘developed’ nations that sourced much of their energy from coal started from a high point, and as such, renewables have had a bigger impact by reducing high-carbon energy source use. Even the switch from coal to natural gas produces a net positive.
If NZ’s way progress towards our goals is plotted using metrics such as those in the above article, we are doomed to never being able to achieve them.