New Zealand: All stories
Fund managers could face climate backlash
15 Feb 2016
New Zealand fund managers who fail to take the risks associated with climate change into account when making investments face a real possibility of legal action, says Bell Gully partner and climate change specialist Simon Watt.
We're looking for friends in the carbon market
15 Feb 2016
New Zealand is once again actively pursuing linkages with other carbon markets.
Planting rate drops by a million seedlings
15 Feb 2016
Latest Government figures show that planting rates of exotic forests last year were even lower than they were in 2014, when nurseries destroyed hundreds of thousands of seedlings because foresters weren’t planting.
Forest owners eye manuka as crop of future
15 Feb 2016
Forest owners battered by low carbon prices and volatile log prices are thinking manuka as a potentially lucrative environmental crop.
MPs back cross-party consensus
15 Feb 2016
Twenty New Zealand MPs from six parties have joined an international organisation aiming for cross-party consensus on climate change policy.
Solid Energy might be short of fix-it funds
15 Feb 2016
Solid Energy’s liability for future environmental remediation could be larger than expected.
Time running out for ETS submissions
15 Feb 2016
The public has just four more days to have a say on whether emitters should be held liable for a greater chunk of their emissions.
Bill puts the environment in its place
15 Feb 2016
A bill putting the environment back into environmental protection is back before Parliament this week.
World energy leaders pack bags for the capital
15 Feb 2016
Government and private-sector leaders from across Asia and the Pacific will gather in Wellington next month to talk about energy resilience to climate change and other threats.
Businesses keen to save on energy use
15 Feb 2016
More than 60 of New Zealand’s largest energy-using businesses are now working with the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority to save on energy use – representing around 40 per cent of the country’s total business energy use.
Organic farmers win better base for milk price
15 Feb 2016
Fonterra is offering organic farmers an independent milk price reflecting consumer demand.
Effluent reduction model could change dairying
15 Feb 2016
A Northland farmer's determination to secure the resource consent compliance that had been eluding him has seen him play a key role in a potentially game-changing effluent reduction model for the dairy industry.
Worth listening to …
15 Feb 2016
The In The Eye of the Storm: Pacific Climate Change Conference gets under way in Wellington today. Radio New Zealand's Colin Peacock spoke to Kiribati president Anote Tong yesterday about what the Pacific is facing, and what countries like New Zealand should be doing.
How a phosphorus shortage could leave us short of food
15 Feb 2016
It’s not as well-known as the other issues, but phosphorus depletion is no less significant. We could live without cars or unusual species, but if phosphorus ran out we’d have to live without food.
Our thirst for gadgets has created an empire of e-waste
15 Feb 2016
Technological improvements mean that the phones, tablets, computers and other electric devices we find so essential are cheaper and more powerful than ever.
Scientists issue chilling climate legacy warning
15 Feb 2016
Scientists stress the need for climate policy to focus not on this century but on the inescapable impacts of greenhouse gas emissions over the next 10,000 years.
New aviation rules will just delay the heavy lifting
15 Feb 2016
There appeared to be some rare good news this week for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft.
Saving our ecosystems step in the right direction
15 Feb 2016
When we think about adapting humanity to the challenges of climate change, it’s tempting to reach for technological solutions. We talk about seeding our oceans and clouds with compounds designed to trigger rain or increasing carbon uptake. We talk about building grand structures to protect our coastlines from rising sea levels and storm surges.
How's the carbon market going? Experts can't agree
9 Feb 2016
Government officials say that New Zealand’s carbon market is liquid – but Westpac’s economists say it’s not.
Why there's little cost in wiping ETS protections
9 Feb 2016
Scrapping the one-for-two and the $25 carbon price cap is likely to have little impact on the economy.
ETS has made little impact, says ministry
9 Feb 2016
The Emissions Trading Scheme has failed to encourage any significant emissions reduction by businesses, a government report has found.
Why Paris might lead to shortage of NZUs
9 Feb 2016
The supply of NZUs could be about to become tighter, a new report says.
Govt's ETS stand has dangers, say economists
9 Feb 2016
Excluding agriculture from the Emissions Trading Scheme might be economically inefficient, say Westpac economists.
Foresters will do deal on carbon price cap
9 Feb 2016
Foresters want the $25 carbon-price cap gone – but they’d live with it if there were a price floor, says a Government-commissioned report.
It's time to rethink what we want from farming
9 Feb 2016
Scientists say nature conservation and protecting the planet from global warming can both be achieved if land is used sustainably, not just for immediate profit.
Useful waste offers win-win energy benefits
9 Feb 2016
An unsung success story in the switch to renewable energy is the use of waste to produce gas – and a valuable by-product.
Disease threatens to kill off bananas ... but there's a way we might save them
9 Feb 2016
Catastrophe is looming for the banana industry. A new strain has emerged of a soil-borne fungus known as “Panama disease” which can wipe out entire plantations – and it is rapidly spreading around the world.
Investors tip balance toward renewables
9 Feb 2016
With investment in renewable electricity sources now outstripping polluting fossil fuels, a new study sees signs of change in global attitudes towards climate risks.
Oceans are heating up ... at the double
9 Feb 2016
Records from a sailing ship’s round-the-world research voyage almost 150 years ago provide further evidence that the Earth is continuing to warm unchecked.
Giant blades snatch energy from the air
9 Feb 2016
Science can now make energy by building immense wind turbine blades and filtering carbon from the air, but the challenge is commercial viability.
A rubbish deal goes down ... inside Russia’s mafia-dominated waste industry
9 Feb 2016
Most Europeans take pride in recycling. A good citizen separates glass from plastics, biowaste from metal cans and brags about it to their friends. Recycling helps to soothe some of the anxiety driven by endless consumption.
How human impacts fuel weather extremes
9 Feb 2016
Researchers show that floods and droughts often happen at least in part because of human-induced influences on the climate, and not just from natural causes.
Many Brits can't be bothered, survey shows
9 Feb 2016
Half the people worried about climate change are not willing to make any changes to their lives to prevent it, a new study suggests.
Why post-Paris businesses must get moving
2 Feb 2016
Emissions Trading Scheme measures protecting industries from the full impact of carbon pricing have had their day, says an organisation representing a trillion dollars worth of investments.
Carbon questions lie in wait at Waitangi
2 Feb 2016
The Government is likely to face tough questioning at Waitangi this weekend over carbon prices.
Stakeholders next up in ETS review
2 Feb 2016
The Emissions Trading Scheme review moves into stakeholder meetings this week.
Our leaders suddenly silent on climate change
2 Feb 2016
The world’s leaders might have been talking big on climate change in Paris in December, but our local versions have been remarkably quiet on the subject in their state-of-the-nation speeches.
Labour setting sail to test the waters of the Pacific
2 Feb 2016
Labour is sending a task force to the Pacific to investigate the impact of climate change on fresh water supplies.
SBC chief off to work for the Government
2 Feb 2016
Sustainable Business Council executive director Penny Nelson is leaving to work for the Government.
Sick seas paint picture of how our future could be
2 Feb 2016
For billions of years, life on Earth remained relatively simple. Only single-celled organisms that could live with little or no oxygen were able to survive in the seas.
Solar club builds up powerful alliance
2 Feb 2016
The foundation stone of a new solar power club of 122 nations has been laid in Gurgaon, India, by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President François Hollande − cementing an agreement the two leaders made at the Paris climate talks last December.
Could a levy on air and shipping fuel sink emissions?
2 Feb 2016
Global agreements to aim for “well below” 2deg warming are nice enough, but now it’s time to develop some detailed policies to help us to get there.
How planning helps these farmers to beat the climate
2 Feb 2016
South Africa’s Western Cape plays an important role in the agricultural economy, but is particularly vulnerable to a changing climate.
New oil and gas wells will wait for price rise
2 Feb 2016
Billions of gallons of oil and huge quantities of gas, already discovered and which companies were about to extract, are currently being left unexploited because of the plunge in oil prices.
High-tech power lines seen as solar solution
2 Feb 2016
Wind power and solar power are ways to reduce carbon emissions, but these generation sources are dependent on the vagaries of the weather, which means neither wind nor solar can produce electricity on-demand at all hours of the day.
Ancient plankton give up secrets to science
2 Feb 2016
Scientists have for the first time determined how and when more than 2000 species of ancient marine plankton became extinct, and a potential indicator for which current species might be vulnerable to rapid climate change.
NZ unlikely to act on emissions conditions
25 Jan 2016
New Zealand is unlikely to activate its conditional 2020 emissions reduction target, officials say.
Keystone pipeline case holds warning for NZ
25 Jan 2016
The Keystone oil pipeline case is the type of challenge New Zealand could face if it signs the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a new analysis shows.
We need fearless leaders, says Clark
25 Jan 2016
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark is calling for “fearless leadership” to get global agreements implemented – including the recently negotiated Paris Agreement on climate change.
Kiwis might be cool, but the heat is still on
25 Jan 2016
Last year might not have been especially hot in New Zealand, that but doesn’t mean the country isn’t experience the impact of climate change, experts say.
Govt ‘captured by industry’ on methane – Carr
Today 11:00am
By Liz Kivi | Former Climate Change Commission chair Rod Carr says that recent moves to weaken methane targets and halt plans for agricultural emissions pricing show the Government has been captured by industry.
Electricity Authority proposes doubling solar export limits to 10 kW
Mon 20 Oct 2025
The Electricity Authority is proposing a default 10kW export limit for small-scale generation, saying new inverter standards and voltage settings allow homes and businesses to feed more power into local networks without compromising safety.
Council buys dairy farm to help clean up Lake Rotorua
Today 11:00am
Bay of Plenty Regional Council has bought a 266-hectare dairy farm in the Lake Rotorua catchment and plans to retire it from production to reduce nitrogen entering the lake.
Govt releases updated emissions projections
13 Oct 2025
By Liz Kivi | The Ministry for the Environment has released updated emissions projections to 2050, which show significant differences to the Climate Change Commission's recent projections for the same period.
Air NZ inks deal for its first internationally verified carbon credits
9 Oct 2025
By Liz Kivi | Air New Zealand has committed to buying 8000 tonnes of carbon removals by 2030, in partnership with local native forest investment platform My Native Forest.
Emails show forestry lobby fought Gisborne crackdown as slash clean-up drags on
26 Sep 2025
By Shannon Morris-Williams | Sustainable land use advocates are accusing Eastland Wood Council of stonewalling efforts to tighten forestry rules, after correspondence between the group and the local council was released under the Official Information Act.
Climate credibility gap widening for Aussie firms
1 Oct 2025
By Pattrick Smellie | Australian public companies’ climate change commitments are in retreat, reflecting difficulty in achieving stated targets and increased fossil use, but not because of any pressure to make less effort, according to a study of major companies’ ESG reporting.
