New Zealand off track for 2030 methane emissions target

New Zealand is "off track" from its 2030 target for biogenic methane emissions, the government said in an updated 2026-30 emissions reduction plan this week. The country will need higher levels of agricultural mitigation technology uptake or a reduction in production.

New Zealand's coalition government in October 2025 announced plans to lower the country's 2050 biogenic methane emissions reduction to 14-24pc below 2017 levels from 24-47pc previously, and confirmed it would not tax agricultural methane emissions as planned by the previous government.

It passed the changes in parliament in December 2025 through an amendment to the Climate Change Response Act 2002.

The most recent emissions projections from 2025 continue to show that New Zealand is on track to meet its first and second emissions budgets — for the 2022-25 and 2026-30 periods respectively — but the country is "off track" from meeting the legislated 10pc reduction in biogenic methane emissions from 2017 levels by 2030, the government said on 29 January. These emissions are projected to decrease by 7.9pc, which equates to a 0.8mn t CO2 equivalent (CO2e) gap, it noted.

This "would likely require higher levels of technology uptake or a reduction in production" compared with assumptions underpinning the central estimate in the 2025 projections.

The 2025 projections model a greater role for agricultural mitigation technology in the 2026-30 budget compared with the previous annual emissions forecast, with 1.9mn t CO2e of abatement.

But higher forecast livestock numbers are driving an increase in total projected agricultural emissions. This is because the expected increase in mitigation technology uptake is "not enough" to offset the increase in production, the government said.

Uncertain 2031-35 emissions outlook

The government remains "confident" that the removal of the on-farm pricing system policy will not impact its ability to meet the 2026-30 budget, but it admitted the scrapped policy would likely have "supported emissions reductions in the [2031-35] period and beyond, and contributed towards our methane targets".

The 2025 projections indicate that New Zealand is off track for meeting the third emissions budget for 2031-35 by 8.7mn t CO2e. Projections suggested that an agricultural emissions pricing system would have an abatement impact of 10.8mn t CO2e in the third budget, accelerating from a projected impact of only 0.2mn t CO2e in the second budget.

The government plans to publish its third emissions reduction plan in 2029, which will set out how it intends to meet the third budget. The second emissions reduction plan, which was just updated, was released in December 2024.

Emissions budgets are limits New Zealand sets on the amount of net emissions it produces in a period of time. The budgets were set in 2022 at 290mn t CO2e for 2022-25, 305mn t CO2e for 2026-30, and 240mn t CO2e for 2031-35, with the 2025 projections showing the country is on track for meeting the first two but off track for reaching the third (see table).

By Juan Weik