Greenhouse gas emissions (industry and household): December 2021 quarter

Greenhouse gas emissions (industry and household): December 2021 quarter

About the data

The quarterly greenhouse gas emissions account produces timely estimates of New Zealand’s gross production-based emissions, combining data from the annual greenhouse gas emissions by industry and household account and indicator data to estimate emissions on a quarterly basis.

Scope

Stats NZ’s emissions series are compiled using the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA).

The SEEA production-based emissions estimates are presented by economic actor (industry and households) and utilise the residency principle to maintain comparability with economic statistics.

• The industry approach takes the process-based classification used in New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory and allocates emissions to industries to align with the nature of their economic production, and to households where emissions directly result from consumption activity under their control (for example, the use fuel in private vehicles). This results in multiple processes and gas types being allocated to an industry or household (for example, emissions from a manufacturing industry may include emissions from both industrial processes and energy use, including vehicle use and heat production).

• The residency principle means deducting emissions from non-residents operating on the domestic territory (for example, international tourists driving vehicles) and adding emissions from residents operating overseas (for example, international aviation or shipping). This adjustment leads to a difference in levels when compared with the inventory.

Industries

These estimates are available for seven industry groups (which are aggregations of industries based on the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006), along with household direct emissions. These industries are further aggregated into three broad industry groupings:

• primary industries
  • agriculture, forestry, and fishing
  • mining
• goods-producing industries
  • manufacturing
  • electricity, gas, water, and waste services
  • construction
• service industries
  • transport, postal, and warehousing
  • services excluding transport, postal, and warehousing

Households

Household emissions are available by the following activities:

• heating/cooling
• transport
• other

Gas breakdown

A breakdown of industry emissions estimates by gas type is included in the quarterly emissions series for the broad industry groupings and households. Gas emissions are expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂-e), which are the emissions of greenhouse gases weighted by their 100-year global warming potential (GWP). The GWP’s are based on those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fourth Assessment Report, 2007.

Gases in this breakdown include:

• carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂-e)
• carbon dioxide (CO₂)
• methane (CH₄)
• nitrous oxide (N₂O)
• fluorinated gases (F gases).

Seasonal adjustment

Data is available as actual and seasonally adjusted values.

Actual emissions data (sometimes referred to as ‘unadjusted’) has significant seasonality, so can only be used for comparisons of time periods which display the same seasonal patterns (for example, the December 2021 quarter compared with the December 2020 quarter).

Seasonally adjusted data exposes movements in emissions that can't be explained by expected seasonal variability and so is better suited for showing quarter-to-quarter movements (for example, the December 2021 quarter compared with the September 2021 quarter).

Data sources

These estimates use the following key releases as input data:

• Greenhouse gas emissions (industry and household): Year ended 2020 (published 26 May 2022)
• New Zealand Energy quarterly: December 2021 quarter (published 10 March 2022)
• Gross domestic product: December 2021 quarter (published 17 March 2022).

Additional data sources including electricity use, card transaction data, prices, and transport statistics are also utilised to compile quarterly emissions statistics.

Revisions

This release contains revisions arising from new and more up-to-date information. Revisions to this data flow through from methodological improvements made to the Greenhouse gas emissions (industry and household): Year ended 2020 account, as it is the basis data upon which quarterly estimates are calculated.

Changes in the 2020 account were seen across all industries due to revisions in road transport in the Greenhouse Gas Inventory data. Additionally, service industries have been revised from improved use of fuel type data. Households have been revised to include fuels used for marine recreation. The Planned methodological improvements for Aotearoa New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory has more information.

Other notable revisions came from methodological and measurement improvements to input data from national accounts, the tourism satellite account, and external energy data. Additional revisions have come from re-allocation of inventory classes based on new information regarding industry allocation and refinements to the model allocating road transport emissions to industry.