NZ Intends to Meet the Paris Agreement… but how?

The Minister for Climate Change made some concerning comments in Farmers Weekly - these comments suggest he misunderstands Aotearoa New Zealand’s legal obligations under the Paris Agreement. 

We’ve written to him, clarifying those obligations and asking what Aotearoa New Zealand’s plan is for meeting our first Nationally Determined Contribution. 

A bit of background on the Paris Agreement 

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are country-specific climate commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate impacts, required under the Paris Agreement. They are countries’ self-determined mitigation goals.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s first NDC (NDC1) sets a target to reduce net emissions by 50% below gross 2005 levels by 2030.

A key point to note is that NDC1 is more ambitious than our domestic emissions reduction targets - our ‘emissions budgets’, which are set under the Climate Change Response Act 2002. This is because when we set NDC1, we did so on the basis that the difference would be achieved by New Zealand purchasing offshore mitigation credits. 

What the Minister got wrong

The Minister claimed that to meet the Paris Agreement, we have to “have the intent to meet [the NDC]”, and that “there is no legal obligation in the context around that”. 

However, the Paris Agreement states that each party shall “prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions that it intends to achieve”. That “intent to meet” our NDC is a legal obligation - one that requires the Government to take reasonable and good faith steps towards meeting that target, as part of our due diligence obligations under the Paris Agreement. 

Currently, we are projected to be around 84 million tonnes of CO2-e short of meeting our NDC. The plan had been to meet that shortfall with offshore mitigation - however, these comments from Minister Watts are another in a series from the Government that indicate that is no longer the plan. The Government has not outlined any alternative plans for how it intends to meet the NDC. 

It is our view that the Paris Agreement requires Aotearoa New Zealand to do more than make bald assertions of intent - it requires us to demonstrate that intent by articulating and reasonably pursuing measures that are capable of meeting the objectives of their NDC. 

We’ve asked the Minister what his plan is to meet NDC1.