New Zealand’s projected greenhouse gas emissions to 2050

Aotearoa New Zealand has both domestic and international greenhouse gas emission reduction targets up to the year 2050.

See emission reduction targets

Projections are uncertain but are based on the best information we have to help us understand how we are tracking towards our targets.

The projections on this page are informed by the 2025 submission of New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2023 and reflect economic conditions and policies at a point of time when data was received from each sector earlier this year.

See New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2023

This page shows two scenarios.

• 'With existing measures’ (WEM) reflects government policies and measures that are currently legislated, funded and implemented.
• ‘With additional measures’ (WAM) shows the impact of the additional emissions reductions generated by the policies and measures in the final second emissions reduction plan. This plan sets out policies and measures to help New Zealand meet its second emissions budget for 2026-2030.  

Central projections are given for each scenario, along with a low and high estimate. This range reflects the underlying sensitivity in the projections. 

"With additional measures" pathways

Within the “with additional measures” pathway, we have looked at three different scenarios beyond 2030 which represent how different levels of efficacy and uptake of agricultural mitigation technology could impact methane emissions. 

We have taken this scenario approach from 2030 as long-term estimates for the impact of mitigation technology for agriculture are more uncertain.  

Scenario A

Scenario A assumes that there is an incentive to adopt technology that reduces agricultural emissions beyond 2030, similar in scale to that currently created by Fonterra and Synlait’s Scope 3 targets. This incentive could come in the form of government policy (such as pricing), industry incentive schemes (such as Fonterra’s Co-operative Difference Scheme) and/or a collaboration between government and industry. It also assumes that the existing objectives for efficacy of mitigation technologies are achieved (for example, a 10 per cent effective methane vaccine by 2028 and a 30 per cent effective vaccine by 2034).  

Scenario B

Scenario B (the central scenario) includes similar assumptions to Scenario A, however the key difference is that we have assumed that between 2030 and 2050 development in technology will lead to more effective mitigation technologies for agriculture, and that there is a stronger driver of adoption than Scenario A.  

Scenario C

Scenario C assumes that we have a much higher level of uptake of technologies that reduce emissions in the agricultural sector and that these are more effective between 2030 and 2050.   

Download the data for the projections (xlsx, 620KB).

Domestic target under the Climate Change Response Act 

The 2025 projections are based on targets set out in law at the time of preparation.  

As at October 2024, Aotearoa New Zealand’s domestic target under the Climate Change Response Act was: 

• Net zero emissions of all greenhouse gas emissions other than biogenic methane by 2050. 
• 24 to 47 per cent reduction below 2017 biogenic methane emissions by 2050, including 10 per cent reduction below 2017 biogenic methane emissions by 2030. 

See Greenhouse gas emissions targets and reporting.

In the biogenic methane graph above, the uncertainty band shrinks between 2030 and 2031 due to a change in how the uncertainty for agricultural biogenic methane was calculated. Before 2030, the uncertainty was based on an assessment of how projections have historically compared to actual Inventory estimates.

From 2031 onwards, the range represents the difference in the emissions between Scenario A and Scenario C, as described above. The ranges are not continuous and are not intended to imply that there is lower uncertainty in 2031 than in 2030.  

Target accounting emissions projections for 2050 (long lived gases) (Mt CO₂-e) 

Biogenic methane projections, per target year (Mt CO₂-e) 

Emissions budgets 

Emissions budgets are stepping stones along the path to the 2050 target. Meeting each of our emissions budgets will make it more likely that we will ultimately achieve this target. 

See Emissions budgets and the emissions reduction plan.

Target accounting emissions projections for Emissions Budget (EB)1, 2 and 3 (Mt CO₂-e) 

The Government has also set an emissions target, Target 9, as part of its nine Government targets to focus the public sector on improved results. Progress on this target is reported quarterly. 

See Government target 9 quarterly reporting

International targets under the Paris Agreement

Aotearoa New Zealand’s first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC1) is to reduce net emissions to 50 per cent below gross 2005 levels by 2030.  

NDC1 is managed as a multi-year emissions budget. New Zealand’s progress towards meeting its NDC is officially assessed every two years under the Paris Agreement, through the Biennial Transparency Report process; however the annual projections can be used to estimate progress between reporting periods. Based on these projections, the target corresponds to a provisional emissions budget of 575 Mt CO₂-e over the period 2021 to 2030. 

The NDC1 budget is higher than the domestic emissions budgets even when taking account of the different time periods covered.

New Zealand’s second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC2) was announced in January 2025. NDC2 is to reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. NDC2 is presented as a point-year target. Achieving it would mean that net emissions in 2035 would be between 39 Mt CO₂-e and 42 Mt CO₂-e.  

See Nationally Determined Contributions

Target accounting emissions projections for NDC1 target (Mt CO₂-e) 

A full account of progress towards New Zealand’s commitments under the Paris Agreement as of late 2024 is provided in New Zealand’s first Biennial Transparency Report. 

See New Zealand's first Biennial Transparency Report.

We follow specific international reporting rules when developing projections for international reporting and tracking NDC progress, that differ from how we track our domestic emissions budgets. This includes only using New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory for historical emissions and including Tokelau’s emissions.

The figures in this NDC1 table were updated at 12pm on 29 January to align with the data correction applied at 0730. 

Data 

These projections use the 100-year time horizon global warming potentials (GWPs) for the non-carbon dioxide gases based on the values provided in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5).  

The use of 100-year GWPs provides a standardised measure to compare the warming impact of different greenhouse gases over a consistent timeframe, helping assess their contributions to climate change in a meaningful and comparable way. 

See greenhouse gas emissions targets and reporting for definitions of gross, net and target accounting emissions.

Modelling 

The information on this page is based on the 2025 submission of New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2023. The projections have been developed using the Emissions in New Zealand (ENZ) model. The ENZ model is a bottom-up model that includes data to represent individual industries and technologies and has been used widely in New Zealand, including by the Climate Change Commission He Pou a Rangi for its demonstration and other pathways and advice.  

We have used the ENZ model to develop the 2025 projections due to its flexibility in modelling alternative scenarios and its capacity for rapid updates with new assumptions. The ENZ modelling was calibrated to agency sector models, to ensure its accuracy and that the projections are fit for purpose. 

This adaptability allows for more timely tracking of emissions, supporting ongoing monitoring and evaluation of New Zealand’s progress toward meeting emissions budgets and targets under the second emissions reduction plan.  

High and low estimates 

High and low projection estimates were developed by adjusting key assumptions, like population growth and gross domestic product, to see how much these factors influence long-term emissions. This produced WEM and WAM high and low scenarios. 

All projections are inherently uncertain and become more uncertain the further out they are made. 

The underlying assumptions can change like:

• economic and population growth
• the price of emissions in New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS)
• technological advancement
• how favourable the weather is to generating hydroelectricity

The projections assume an NZU price path estimated by using the ETS market model to project future prices based on ETS unit and price control settings, expected forestry supply, assumed stockpile drawdown, and forecasts of industrial allocation.

It results in prices peaking at $80 in 2030 and falling to $54 by 2050. The carbon price assumption was finalised in May 2025 and used an input to sectoral projections. Because unit and price control settings were maintained in the 2025 decision, the same carbon price assumption was also used for the with additional measures projections. 

This is unlikely to reflect actual market prices which are dynamic and changeable to reflect market conditions. This is particularly relevant for the third emissions budget period and creates additional uncertainty for this budget. The NZ ETS price assumption will be reassessed in future projections modelling. 

Continuing to reduce our emissions will give us the best chance of meeting our emissions budgets and our longer-term targets, even if underlying circumstances or assumptions change.