New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory
New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory is the annual report of all human-induced emissions and removals of greenhouse gases in Aotearoa New Zealand.
New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory (the Inventory) is produced each year as part of Aotearoa New Zealand’s obligations under the Paris Agreement and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The Inventory is the official annual report of all human-induced emissions and removals of greenhouse gases in Aotearoa. It is the key source of evidence on Aotearoa New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions trends.
Inventory data are used for both international and domestic reporting. The Inventory informs Aotearoa New Zealand’s policy recommendations on climate change and enables us to monitor progress towards our emissions reductions targets.
The Inventory is a Tier 1 statistic under Aotearoa New Zealand's Official Statistics System. This means it is one of the most important publicly available statistics for understanding how well Aotearoa New Zealand is performing.
Tier 1 statistics [Stats NZ website]
Previous Inventories
The Ministry for the Environment compiles and submits the Inventory under the Paris Agreement and UNFCCC by April 15 each year.
We work closely with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the Ministry for Primary Industries, and the Government of Tokelau’s Ministry of Climate, Oceans and Resilience. Many of the values used in the inventory are derived from data collated by Stats NZ.
The Inventory reports greenhouse gas emissions and removals from five sectors:
- Agriculture
- Energy
- Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU)
- Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)
- Waste
Tokelau’s emissions are also reported separately by sector as ‘Other’.
Gross emissions are Aotearoa New Zealand's total emissions from Agriculture, Energy, IPPU and Waste sectors as well as gross emissions from Tokelau.
Net emissions are made up of gross emissions combined with emissions and removals from the LULUCF sector.
The LULUCF sector keeps track of greenhouse gases that result from direct human-induced land use activities (eg forestry, agricultural and cropping activities). This is separate from the livestock emissions reported in the Agriculture sector. It covers both emissions and removals of greenhouse gases from soil, vegetation and wood products.
The Inventory covers the following greenhouse gases which have direct warming effects:
- carbon dioxide (CO2)
- methane (CH4)
- nitrous oxide (N2O)
- hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
- perfluorocarbons (PFCs)
- sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)
- nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).
Only emissions and removals of these direct greenhouse gases are included in the national Inventory totals.
The Inventory also reports on indirect greenhouse gases but they are not included in the national Inventory totals. These gases do not have a direct warming effect, but react with other gases in the atmosphere and increase the concentration of direct greenhouse gases.
The indirect gases are:
- oxides of nitrogen (NOx)
- sulphur oxides (SOx)
- carbon monoxide (CO)
- non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs).
International reporting guidelines govern what the Inventory covers and when it is submitted. The latest year inventoried ends 16 months prior to the publication date to enable sufficient time to collect and process the data required to prepare the submission. The latest Inventory, published in April 2025 contains data from 1 January 1990 to 31 December 2023.
Criteria for quality review
The Inventory is compiled following internationally agreed reporting requirements and in accordance with the guidelines produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories [IPCC website].
Along with the Biennial Transparency Report, the Inventory is subject to a technical expert review by an independent team of international experts certified under the Paris Agreement. The review process runs on a biennial cycle and all reports required under the Paris Agreement on the biennial reporting cycle including review reports are published on the UN Climate Change website.
First Biennial Transparency Reports [UNFCCC website].
Inventory estimates are recalculated every year
When the methodology or underlying data change, the whole inventory time series from the base year to the latest year is recalculated. This means that the emissions estimates are only up to date in the latest inventory, and previous inventories are not useful for comparisons. Changes made to the Inventory are often related to improvements in activity data collection, emission factors, and methodology, or the identification of additional emission sources.