Rainy 2022 drove down NZ's greenhouse gas emissions

Rainy 2022 drove down NZ's greenhouse gas emissions
New Zealand's emissions fell in 2022, largely because of reduced coal and gas generation as wet weather provided plentiful hydro resources. (Photo: NZME)
Greg Hurrell
Wet weather in 2022 played a large role in a 4% decrease in gross emissions from the year before. It was the third year-on-year decrease in a row.New Zealand’s gross emissions fell by 3.4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (Mt CO2-e) from 81.8 Mt CO2-e in 2021 to 78.4 Mt CO2e, a figure more than triple the total emissions of 1 Mt CO2-e from domestic aviation.The Ministry for the Environment (MfE) released its annual greenhouse gas inventory on April 18. The latest data set is for 2022 due to the lead time in gathering the data.NZ’s ne...

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