The BusinessNZ Energy Council (BEC) today released the second in its series of reports on energy scenarios to 2050. This report looks at the contribution the energy and transport sectors can make to emission reductions (BEC 2050: A deep dive into the New Zealand energy and transport sector emissions).
"The challenge of meeting our Paris Agreement target of a 30 percent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 lies ahead of us," said BEC Chair Hon David Caygill.
"In taking our scenarios work to the next level we can now better understand both the scale of the challenges and the nature of the opportunities to reduce emissions.
"As a country we aspire to both high growth and emissions reductions to help us meet our Paris Agreement commitment. We also need to balance this with energy security and affordability.
"If we knew the future, reducing our energy and transport sector's emissions would be easy. But we don't. Our scenarios help us move beyond the usual practice of assembling disconnected technical possibilities to focus on what levers we have available to practically unlock our emissions reduction potential.
"Our two scenarios describe different ways the energy and transport sectors can contribute towards emissions reduction. But the scenarios are more than just storylines. They also show how different assumptions about the future – for example, economic and population growth, and the price of carbon - affect how much reduction can be achieved, and which levers should be investigated further by policy makers.
"For the first time across the entire New Zealand energy and transport sectors, we now have modelling that reveals just how sensitive New Zealand's energy emissions are to the key uncertainties the sector is grappling with – technology, economic transformation, the pursuit of higher renewable energy levels and transport behaviour.
"With this work we can better understand the range of choices and trade-offs for the energy and transport sectors to meaningfully contribute towards New Zealand's emission reduction target.
| A BusinessNZ Energy Council release || April 10, 2017 |||
