New Zealand, on Sunday, pledged that it will reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2030. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke at the United Nations COP26 climate conference Sunday evening in Glasgow, Scotland.
“While we are a small contributor to global emissions, as a country surrounded by oceans and an economy reliant on our land we are not immune to the impact of climate change, so it's critical we pull our weight,” Ardern said. New Zealand's previous target was to bring emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. At the 2015 Paris Agreement, signatories committed to keeping global warming to “well below” 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and preferably to 1.5 degrees, but carbon levels in the atmosphere have since grown. “This decade is make or break for the planet,” Australia Climate Change Minister James Shaw said in the statement.
At COP26, leaders of the 20 richest countries will come together to take steps to limit global warming. In recent years, the New Zealand government has introduced several policies to lower emissions including promising to make its public sector carbon-neutral by 2025.
New Zealand's gross emissions of global greenhouse gases are high, though, overall they are a small contributor to global emissions. Between 2018-19 New Zealand's emissions increased by 2 per cent and between 1990 and 2018, emissions rose by 57 per cent.
