New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2006: An Overview

• New Zealand’s national greenhouse gas inventory
• Total emissions and removals: 1990–2006
• Emissions by gas
• Emissions by sector
• Agriculture sector
• Energy sector
• Industrial processes sector and solvents and other product use sector
• Waste sector
• Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry sector

Total emissions and removals: 1990–2006

In 2006, New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions totalled 77.9 Mt CO₂-e. This value excludes the emissions and removals from the Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector. Total emissions are now 26 per cent higher (15.9 Mt CO₂-e) than the 1990 level of 61.9 Mt CO₂-e (Figure 1).

Removals and emissions of greenhouse gases in the LULUCF sector (Figure 1) amounted to 22.7 Mt CO₂-e in 2006. This is an increase of 11 per cent above removals in 1990 (20.5 Mt CO₂-e).

The LULUCF sector of the inventory is not the same as forest sinks or afforestation under the Kyoto Protocol. The inventory reports emissions and removals from all forests (planted and natural) for all years, whereas the Kyoto Protocol limits forest sinks to forests planted after 31 December, 1989.

There is statistical uncertainty around the values reported in national inventories. For New Zealand the uncertainty in total emissions (excluding removals) for the 2006 calendar year is ± 21 per cent. Uncertainty in the trend in emissions since 1990 is ± 5 per cent, because the uncertainty in emissions factors in any one year cancels out over time. It is the trend in emissions that is paramount to the requirements under the Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol.

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