Aotearoa's aviation emissions need urgent action

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-05-26 03:00

New Zealand

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Aotearoa New Zealand has particularly high aviation emissions - it ranks 6th in the world for per-capita emissions, and its total emissions rose 116% from 1990 to 2019. This rapid growth path is incompatible with the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Reducing air travel is challenging for New Zealand due to its remote location, high proportion of globally dispersed families, tourism industry, and poor public land transport system. While technological innovations have been proposed to reduce emissions, researchers say that none of these will lead to a significant reduction in the short to medium term, and that the growth in air traffic seems likely to defeat even the most ambitious technological improvements. They say we need a national aviation action plan that includes avoiding trips or shifting them to lower impact modes of transport, and there needs to be urgent action to ensure that aviation emissions remain permanently below 2019 levels.