Regional carbon emissions inventory adopted

Greater Wellington's Regional Sustainability Committee today adopted a new regional greenhouse gas emissions inventory, the first step in developing a plan to reduce the region's overall carbon footprint.

The inventory is based on the 2006/07 year, which shows our regional greenhouse gas footprint was 3.8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in the 2006/07 year, an average of 8.1 tonnes per person.

Although that's below the New Zealand average of 18.5 tonnes per person it is still significantly higher than the desirable global average of around two tonnes per person per year, the amount believed to be sustainable for the planet in the long term.

When carbon capture in the region's forests is taken into account, emissions drop by 1.1 million tonnes to a net of 2.7million tonnes/ CO2 equivalent, or six tonnes per person.

Transport, agriculture and electricity are responsible for 82% of the region's greenhouse gas footprint. Agricultural emissions make up the single biggest segment (31%) even though this is a much smaller percentage than the national average of 48% due to a smaller agricultural sector.

The emissions inventory is the first of a five stage process; subsequent steps are to set emissions reduction targets, establish an action plan, implement it and measure the benefits.

"While our per person emissions are not as high as some other parts of New Zealand, they are not sustainable in the long term. If everybody in the world lived like us, we would need four earths." Regional Sustainability chair Chris Laidlaw says.

"Over the next year we'll be talking to community groups, councils and experts to develop an action plan that aims to reduce our emissions and that also recognises that climate change is happening and we must adapt to it.

"We now have a workable benchmark to start with that all the councils in the region are comfortable with and that's a big step forward."

The inventory was established by Landcare Research with input and peer review from NIWA. It covers emissions from land transport, agriculture, energy (electricity, gas and coal), aviation and waste.

The previous inventory was undertaken in 2001 using data supplied by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).

The 2001 emissions total was 2.1 million tonnes/ CO2 equivalent. Of the additional 1.7M tonnes CO2e in the 2006/07 emissions, 1.4M tonnes comes from agricultural and aviation emissions, which were not counted in the 2001 inventory. The rest of the difference is made up by fairly small increases in emissions from some sectors, such as transport, and differences in counting methodologies.