Help Shape Our Climate Future: Consultation on New Zealand’s Second Emissions Reduction Plan now open

• Have your say on the second emissions reduction plan
• Read the discussion document

Our households, businesses, and economy are feeling the effects of a changing climate. We are seeing the impacts to lives and livelihoods from heavier rainfall and flooding during storm events in New Zealand, and the effect of drought on our productivity. That’s why we need to work together to reduce the impacts of climate change.

The Second Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP2) will be published at the end of this year. It will outline the actions that we intend to take to reduce emissions in New Zealand during the second emissions budget period (2026 – 2030).

Earlier this month, the Government released its climate change strategy which set out is approach for delivering on New Zealand’s climate change goals, including the second emissions budget.

The Second Emissions Reduction Plan is a key tool to bring the Government’s climate strategy to life. We are now consulting on policy proposals and initiatives to inform the second emissions reduction plan. These proposals sit across the Government’s five priority areas and focus on key sectors: energy, transport, agriculture, forestry and waste.

The consultation document outlines seven key policies which the Government believes will have the greatest impact on reducing emissions. They are:

• increasing renewable energy by reducing the consenting burden through Electrify NZ
• targeting 10,000 public EV chargers by 2030
• lowering agricultural emissions by giving farmers the tools to reduce emissions and through fair and sustainable pricing of on-farm agricultural emissions by 2030
• investing in resource recovery through the Waste Minimisation Fund
• improving organic waste and landfill gas capture
• improving public transport
• investigating carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS).

It also outlines other actions or initiatives that will help to reduce our emissions.

The discussion document also sets out how emissions pricing, and the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme in particular, will play a central role in our climate change response. Generally, the approach outlined in the discussion document is to support emissions pricing to drive net emissions reductions where it is most effective to do so.

As part of consultation on the second emissions reduction plan, we are also formally consulting on amendments to the first emissions reduction plan which reflect the Government’s new approach to meeting emissions budgets.

The Government has made some changes to the first ERP to reflect their approach to meeting emissions budgets and to align the plan with their broader climate response strategy. The discussion document provides an overview of policies in the first emissions reduction plan that have been stopped.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s emissions reduction plans help us navigate towards an economy that produces fewer emissions. We produce emissions reduction plans every five years. The first emissions reduction plan was released in 2022, for the years 2022 to 2025.

Planning is underway on the second emissions reduction plan, covering the emission budget for 2026 to 2030. This plan will be published before the end of 2024.

There are a range of ways for the public to have their say during consultation and help to shape the second emissions reduction plan.

You can answer:

• five summary questions that will provide the Government with some important information about what New Zealanders think about the proposals.
  • People can answer these quickly and easily without having to go into the detail of all proposals in the plan.
  • These summary questions can be found at the start of the consultation.
• 63 questions across a wide range of topics 
  • People can provide feedback on as much or as little as they like, based on what interests them or what they’re knowledgeable about.
  • There are 12 topics the questions cover.
  • These can be found within sections 1 - 12 of the consultation.

If you have any questions email infoatmfe@mfe.govt.nz.