The big picture – the challenge of climate change and aviation emissions

Although many people are aware of the “big picture” and the issues we face in Aotearoa New Zealand, it’s useful to refer to some of the key research which outlines the key issues.

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

Scientists have delivered a stern update on the climate crisis, as rising greenhouse gas emissions cause extreme and increasingly severe weather conditions and events that only swift and drastic action can avert. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, set out the final part of its mammoth sixth assessment report on Monday, 20th March 2023. The comprehensive review of human knowledge of the climate crisis took hundreds of scientists eight years to compile and runs to thousands of pages, but boiled down to one message: this decade is crucial for action. The three main reports are as follows:

  • IPCC, 2021: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2391 pp. doi:10.1017/9781009157896. (Download here)
  • IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 3056 pp., doi:10.1017/9781009325844. (Download here)
  • IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, R. Slade, A. Al Khourdajie, R. van Diemen, D. McCollum, M. Pathak, S. Some, P. Vyas, R. Fradera, M. Belkacemi, A. Hasija, G. Lisboa, S. Luz, J. Malley, (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA. doi: 10.1017/9781009157926 (Download here)

These three reports are brought together in the Synthesis Report below. The Synthesis Report is the last of the Sixth Assessment Report products, finalised in March 2023. It provides an integrated view of climate change as the final part of the Sixth Assessment Report:

  • IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 3056 pp., doi:10.1017/9781009325844. (Download here)

The IPCC AR6 emphasises that political will is crucial and that acting within this decade is essential. It is likely that warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2030s and make it harder to limit warming below 2°C. The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years (high confidence). Every country and every sector of the economy must play its part. Every tenth of a degree of warming from here will have consequences, in terms of increasingly damaging extreme events. If warming reaches around 2°C or beyond, we will lock in metres of sea level rise, along with extreme weather events that would be very hard to adapt to in many countries. It would consign all future generations to massive disruption, cost, and loss of life.

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment – two key reports on Tourism in Aotearoa

  • “Pristine, popular… imperilled? The environmental consequences of projected tourism growth.” Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, 18 December 2019. (Download here)

This report addresses the environmental and cultural impacts of tourism and what ongoing business-as-usual growth could mean for the environment and the vulnerability of the tourism sector. The Commissioner warns that increasing numbers of tourists – both domestic and international – are putting our environment under pressure and eroding the very attributes that make Aotearoa New Zealand such an attractive country to visit.

  • “Not 100% – but four steps closer to sustainable tourism.” Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, 18 February 2021. (Download here)

Tourism is not as environmentally benign as it’s made out to be, and the discontinuity created by the pandemic offers an opportunity to address some of the long-standing environmental and social issues associated with the industry. This report puts forward four proposals that could make a real difference to some of the problems outlined in the Commissioner’s 2019 report.

Key research about the impact of climate change generally on Aotearoa

  • Bodeker, G., Cullen, N., Katurji, M., McDonald, A., Morgenstern, O., Noone, D., Renwick, J., Revell, L., & Tait, A. (2022). Aotearoa New Zealand Climate Change Projections Guidance: Interpreting the latest IPCC WG1 report findings (Prepared for the Ministry for the  Environment CR 501). (Link)
  • Ministry for the Environment / The Treasury. (2023). Ngā Kōrero Āhuarangi Me Te Ōhanga: Climate Economic and Fiscal Assessment 2023. (Link) 
  • Royal Society (2017). Climate change implications for New Zealand. (Link)

Key research about the impact of climate change on Tourism in Aotearoa

Key research about the impact of aviation in Aotearoa 

  • McLachlan, R.I. and Callister, P.  Managing New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. Working Paper. (Link)  
  • McLachlan, R.I. and Callister, P. Decarbonising Aotearoa New Zealand’s aviation sector: Hard to abate, but even harder to govern Working Paper (Link) 
  • Tarr, A.P., Smith, I.J. and Rodger, C.J. Carbon dioxide emissions from international air transport of people and freight: New Zealand as a case study. Environmental Research Communications, Volume 4, Issue 7. (Link)

A selection of relevant media coverage

  • Airline climate goals could price Australia, NZ out of air connectivity says airports. NZ Herald (1 August 2023). Read it here.
  • The Reasons Behind New Zealand’s Higher-Than-Average Per Capita Aviation Emissions Levels. Simple Flying (8 June 2023). Read it here.
  • Study: Airlines to miss net zero goals unless demand is reduced. BusinessGreen (6 June 2023). Read it here.
  • Two trillion tonnes of greenhouse gases, 25 billion nukes of heat: are we pushing Earth out of the Goldilocks zone? The Conversation (3 May 2023). Read it here.
  • Climate inaction likely to cost billions – Treasury. Newsroom (11 April 2023). Read it here.
  • Failing to take decisive climate action could shrink economy by $4.4 billion – report. RNZ (7 March 2023). Read it here.
  • Net zero aviation fuels: resource requirements and environmental impacts. The Royal Society. (28 February 2023). This is a summary of the full paper published on the same date. Read it here.
  • Net-zero aviation needs up to $1 trillion in carbon offsets by 2050. NewScientist (30 January 2023). Read it here.
  • Climate change: Extreme weather-related insurance claims climb as climate change bites. Newshub (14 September 2022). Read it here.
  • Miracle technologies will not be the answer to aviation’s net zero emissions pledge, Financial Times (22nd June 2022). Read it here
  • Just one of 50 aviation industry climate targets met, study finds. The Guardian (10th May 2022). Read it here.
  • IPCC report: this decade is critical for adapting to inevitable climate change impacts and rising costs. The Conversation (1 March 2022). Read it here.
  • Air NZ struggles to meet even conservative climate emissions targets Newsroom (7th December 2021) Read it here
  • A land divided by climate extremes: what the IPCC report says about New Zealand. The Guardian (10 August 2021). Read it here.

Access research topics here:

  • Back to Research Index home page (click here)
  • The big picture – the challenge of climate change and aviation emissions (click here)
  • Aotearoa’s tourism sector grapples with sustainability (click here)
  • The aviation industry’s biggest challenge (click here)
  • “Low carbon aviation”: aviation efficiency and technology myths (click here)
  • Aviation: moral arguments and climate equity (click here)
  • Policy considerations to reduce carbon emissions (click here)
  • Infrastructure trajectories with positive long term outcomes (click here)
  • Behavioural and attitudinal change to reduce emissions (click here)
  • Economic consequences of (in)action on climate change (click here)

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