Greenhouse gas emissions (industry and household): June 2022 quarter

Study

Title

^en-NZ

Description

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 United Nations 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(Table 1) 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 of 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.

Table 1. Key differences between the GHG Inventory and SEEA GHG emissions accounts

	GHG Inventory: by Ministry for the Environment	GHG Emissions Accounts (production-based): by Stats NZ
Purpose	Provides official estimates, used for international reporting and for tracking and targets.	Enhancing comparability of emissions data to economic statistics (for example, emissions intensity and decoupling). International comparisons
Accounting principle	Territory - measures all emissions ocurring within New Zealand's territory (including Tokelau).	Residency⁽¹⁾
Classification	Sector and process. Source/sink categories.	Industries and households - Using the Australian New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006 (ANZSIC06).
Recording of flows	Gross and net	Gross
Reporting period	Annual	Annual and quarterly
Note: (1) As a result of design differences, SEEA based emissions accounts estimates are generally 2-3 percent higher than the Greenhouse Gas Inventory estimates. Sources: Stats NZ

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 June 2022 quarter compared with the June 2021 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 June 2022 quarter compared with the March 2022 quarter).

For information on alterations made to the seasonal adjustment methodology to account for shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic, see Seasonal adjustment and automatic outliers in time series after COVID-19 | Stats NZ.

Data sources

These estimates use the following key releases as input data:

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. Refer to 'Revisions' from the Greenhouse gas emissions (industry and household): December 2021 quarter for more detailed information about relevant methodological improvements.

^en-NZ

Date

Tuesday, 28 February 2023