Climate goal faces huge challenges
WELLINGTON: There are immense challenges ahead to reach the Climate Change Commission’s target of 40% of cars being electric by 2035, the AA says.
The commission has published a raft of recommendations for combating the climate crisis, with hopes to make the country carbon neutral by 2050.
It suggests banning any new petrol cars coming into the country at some point between 2030 and 2035.
It is an ambitious plan given electric vehicles (EVs) make up less than 1% of the fleet.
Other large barriers include fears international demand will keep prices out of reach of New Zealand buyers, and the lack of appropriate works vehicles, such as utes, to suit local conditions.
Automobile Association policy and research national manager Simon Douglas said there were enormous challenges.
There were only about 250 charging stations nationwide, which was totally inadequate, and investment needed to be massively increased.
‘‘It’s going to need to happen at a scale several times bigger than what we’ve seen so far,’’ Mr Douglas said.
‘‘And to do that we think the Government is going to need to invest.’’
The AA wanted the Government to spend money from fuel taxes on charging infrastructure.
Z Energy chief executive Mike Bennetts said its stations were ideal for providing charging and it was seeking to expand this service.
‘‘Clearly, having a really strong state highway network where supercharging or fast charging facilities are regularly available . . . I think that’s a really important part of building out a network.
Mr Douglas said there were big questions about how to manage charging hundreds of thousands of vehicles in the cities.
‘‘We’ve got some very big picture visions from the Climate Change Commission and the Government.
‘‘But those very practical challenges like ‘Do you have to chuck an extension cord out the window on to the street?
‘‘When we start to get 50% of New Zealand’s vehicles as EVs, . . . we’re going to have to look very carefully at the infrastructure.’’
Mr Douglas said EV prices ranged from about $10,000 for a used vehicle to more than $100,000 for some new vehicles.
The starting price for a new EV was more than $50,000.
Prices were starting to come down and he expected the price differential with fossil fuel cars to disappear in about five years.
He said it still put them out of reach of many New Zealanders and the commission wanted the Government to help poorer people make the transition.
The final Climate Change Commission report will go to the Government before the end of May and the Government has pledged to release a plan by the end of the year. — RNZ
GIVEN roughly 98% of our light vehicles run on fossil fuels, clearing New Zealand’s highways of gasguzzlers might appear an impossible feat right now.
Yet the commission found it was entirely possible to nearly decarbonise our fleet — from small cars to large trucks — by 2050.
How?
It required an increase in electric vehicle (EV) sales so rapid that nearly all vehicles entering the country’s fleet would be electric by 2035.
That switch, while ambitious, would ultimately deliver ‘‘significant’’ cost savings, the commission said, while reducing pollution and replacing imported fuels with local renewable electricity.
Today, light vehicles like the cars, utes and SUVs we drive are a major source of our emissions, accounting for nearly 11 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2equivalent).
While EV is ownership is on the rise, numbers are still far too low, with just 24,092 on the road as at last month.
The commission listed the many reasons why people didn’t buy them, such as higher upfront costs, limited options, charging network access, range anxiety and New Zealand’s limited leverage for accessing future supplies.
That needed to change as quickly as possible.
To meet the proposed emissions budgets it set out, and to be on track for 2050, at least 50% of all light vehicle and motorcycle imports should be electric — either battery EV or plugin hybrid — by 2027.
The commission said the Government should place a time limit — as early as 2030 but no later than 2035 — on light vehicles with internal combustion engines entering, being manufactured, or assembled here.
It should also introduce a package of measures to ensure there were enough EVs entering the country — and slash their upfront cost until they were costcompetitive with their petrolpowered equivalents.
At the same time, New Zealand could take bold steps to ensure it is no longer being effectively a dumping ground for highpolluting cars, by introducing an emissions target of 105g CO2/km, as soon as 2028.
While government efforts to date have lagged, last week brought a step in the right direction.
That was a renewed commitment to pass a clean car import standard this year, to buy only zeroemissions public transport buses from 2025, and mandate a loweremitting biofuel blend across the sector.
Transport Minister Michael Wood said the new standard, beginning next year, would phase in the 105g CO2/km target through annual targets that grew progressively lower, to give importers time to adjust.
‘‘The Import Standard will prevent up to 3 million tonnes of emissions by 2040, mean more climatefriendly cars are available, and will give families average lifetime fuel savings of nearly $7000 per vehicle.’’
We can also electrify more of our energy use
The electrification of energy use was an essential part of New Zealand’s ‘‘just transition’’ — but it would require a major expansion of the electricity system.
It was possible for wind, geothermal and solar power to meet the expected growth in demand from electrifying transport and heat to 2050, while keeping electricity affordable.
Even with this growth, the emissions from the generation of electricity could reduce considerably relative to today.
To shoulder that shift, however, the energy industry would need to build more low emissions generation capacity — and quickly.
That could come with complications.
Big changes in demand or supply — like the Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter closing, which the commission said should happen in 2026 — could stoke uncertainty in the market, in turn resulting in generators delaying investment in new renewable generation.
‘‘Barriers to rapid electrification will need to be systematically addressed,’’ the commission found.
‘‘For consumers and industry to invest and convert to electrification, they need to have confidence that electricity will be available, affordable and reliable.’’
The NZ Battery project would deliver advice on potential solutions to the challenge of ‘‘dry year’’ energy security, when not enough could be generated through hydro.
‘‘While a solution to this challenge could enable Aotearoa to reach 100 % renewable electricity, it could cost taxpayers billions of dollars,’’ the commission said.
It suggested other options for reducing emissions should be considered, as other actions may have a larger impact for the same cost.
‘‘Arriving at 100% renewable electricity is the desired endpoint, but the timing and sequencing of the transition is important.’’
Ultimately, it said the Government should have in place, by mid2023, a renewable energy target of at least 60% by the end of 2035, along with milestones to hit by 2025 and 2030.
Along with that, it had to set a deadline to retire electricitygeneration assets, decide how to address the ‘‘dry year’’ problem and bring in measures, like a disclosure regime, to wholesale electricity market uncertainty over the 2020s.
Factories can swap coal boilers for clean heat
The advice suggested low and medium temperature heat in industry and buildings could be decarbonised by 2050, through a switch away from coal, diesel and gas to electricity and biomass.
Its analysis indicated these costs could range up to $250/tonne CO2equivalent reduced — but would be less than this where heat pumps or biomass could be used.
‘‘Energy efficiency and behaviour changes that reduce energy demand will play an important role in many areas,’’ the commission said.
‘‘These can help to cut emissions sooner and in hardtoabate sectors. They can also contribute cost reductions and cobenefits.’’
But the commission acknowledged some activities — notably industrial processes that use hightemperature heat — would be hard to electrify.
Nonetheless, slashing pollution from process heat — making up a third of our energyrelated emissions — would be ‘‘critical’’ for meeting the 2050 target.
The commission’s budgets required the use of coal in boilers to come down by around 1.4PJ a year — roughly the equivalent to the energy used by one very large dairy processing factory.
By 2035, under the commission’s suggested budgets, emissions would ultimately have to come down by 2Mt of CO2equivalent and the bulk of those cuts would be required by the decade’s end.
‘‘To get on a low emissions pathway, Aotearoa needs to take urgent action to avoid locking in new fossil fuel process heat assets, and focus on converting boilers to low emissions sources of energy.’’
Current barriers to doing that included the time required to convert plants and establish or expand fuel supply chains, as well as to upgrade grid infrastructure and build new renewable electricity generation.
The Government has moved on the issue by opening a new
$70 million fund for companies to make the switch — and do so quickly.
The challenge also spelt out the need for a range of new cleaner energy sources.
While bioenergy and hydrogen both held promise, New Zealand first needed to understand how best to make use of their potential.
‘‘Our analysis indicates that these fuels have significant potential for reducing emissions in transport, process heat and industrial processes,’’ the commission found.
‘‘However, more work is needed to support establishing supply chains and infrastructure and making them more costcompetitive.’’
A longtouted ‘‘bioeconomy’’ could only be realised if the Government provided direction on the priority uses of bioenergy, signalled the optimal scale of a system, helped overcome barriers, and offered investment and procurement support.
We can plant more forests
The commission was blunt in telling the Government it could no longer plant its way out of bringing down CO2 levels.
While forestry pulled about 9.5Mt of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere today — our emissions would be 14% higher without it — that total needed to be ratcheted up to 15.5Mt.
‘‘Our path for gross emissions requires at least 16,000ha of new native forests per year by 2025, and 25,000 hectares per year by 2030 until at least 2050,’’ the commission said.
‘‘It also requires 25,000ha per year of exotic afforestation out to 2030, reducing down to no new exotic afforestation for carbon removals by 2050.’’
In total, about 380,000ha of new exotic forestry would be established by 2035.
There was also an important place for new native forests, which could also be planted on less productive land.
With a sustained high rate of planting through to 2050, new native forests could provide a longterm carbon sink of more than 4 MtCO2/ year.
‘‘Further reliance on forestry as a carbon sink could divert action away from reducing gross emissions in other sectors, and make maintaining net zero emissions after 2050 challenging,’’ the commission said.
‘‘However, new permanent native forests could provide an enduring carbon sink to help offset residual longlived emissions over the long term.’’
Importantly, while permanent native forests sucked carbon at slower rates than exotic planted forests, they continued to do so for hundreds of years.
‘‘Native forests also offer other benefits, such as longterm erosion control, improved biodiversity and recreational benefits.
‘‘There is an estimated 1.15 million to 1.4 million ha of erosionprone land, much of which would not be suitable for production forestry but could be suitable for converting to permanent forest.’’
One Manaaki WhenuaLandcare Research estimate indicated about 740,000ha of marginal land not suitable for commercial forests could naturally regenerate if pests were managed, and some of this land was Governmentowned.
However, there were currently limited incentives for landowners to change lessproductive farmland to permanent native forests, either through planting or by letting it revert. Production forests, meanwhile, could play multiple roles in the transition to low emissions.
That included providing a carbon sink in the short to medium term, offering low emissions wood products to replace higher emissions alternatives, and by substituting bioenergy for fossil fuel use.
Production forests planted over the next decade would continue to contribute towards emissions budgets until about 2050, while forests planted beyond 2030 would contribute to removals in the longer term.
The commission noted current settings under the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme might incentivise more largescale pine plantations than was actually desired to meet 2050 targets and this could lead to forestry displacing gross emissions reductions.
We can meet contentious methane targets
How to bring down levels of biogenic methane largely stemming from livestock — and responsible for a third of our greenhouse gas emissions — is perhaps the most debated area of New Zealand climate policy.
But the commission found the current target range set under the Zero Carbon Act — a reduction of
24% to 47% by 2050 — could not be achieved under status quo measures that would actually reduce levels by just 12% below 2017 levels.
The good news was that New Zealand could indeed achieve what the commission recommended: a
16% drop, from 1.32Mt CH to 1.11Mt,
4 by 2035.
Particularly, the 1.2Mt CH4 of biogenic methane and 8.3Mt CO
2 equivalent of longlived gases currently emitted by agriculture would need to fall by 0.97Mt CH4 and 6.9Mt CO2equivalent respectively.
Under an optimistic, socalled ‘‘tailwinds’’ scenario, major technology and behaviour changes would mean biogenic methane could fall as far as 59% below 2017 levels by 2050.
Even under its tougher ‘‘headwinds’’ scenario, slower changes in technology and behaviour still allowed biogenic methane to fall to a quarter below 2017 levels by
2050.
Changing certain farm management practices included adjusting stocking rates and supplementary feed and nitrogen inputs for emissions efficiency, plus breeding low emissions sheep into the national flock, and using lownitrogen feeds.
Dairy and sheep and beef animal numbers would need to be brought down by about 15% by 2030.
Other promising options being researched and developed include a methane inhibitor compatible with the pastoral farming system, and a methane vaccine. — The New
Zealand Herald