Zero Carbon Law Of New Zealand – Free PDF Download

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SOME THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT NEW ZEALAND

Population – 50 lakh
New Zealand’s capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland.
Currency – NZ Dollar

New Zealand lawmakers passed a “Zero Carbon” bill that it hopes will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to a near-neutral level by 2050.
The legislation, which was supported on both sides of the political divide, mandates that in 40 years’ time, the country should produce no greenhouse gases, except methane, as part of the country’s efforts to meet its Paris climate accord commitments.

There are a group of gases that are responsible for the greenhouse effect, including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous dioxide, water vapor, and fluorinated gases.
They have different chemical properties and can gradually increase or decrease from the atmosphere through different processes.The one process that is most pressing at the moment (and has been for the past century) is human activity.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) accounts for 76% of the global human-caused emissions. After being released into the atmosphere, about 40% stays for 100 years, while 20% remains after 1,000 years and 10% up to 10,000 years later.
Meanwhile, methane (CH4) stays for less time in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide but it’s much stronger in terms of the greenhouse gas effect. Its global warming impact is 25 times larger than the one of the carbon dioxides in a period of 100 years. It accounts for 16% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Methane (CH4): Methane is emitted during the production and transport of coal, natural gas, and oil. Methane emissions also result from livestock and other agricultural practices and by the decay of organic waste in municipal solid waste landfills.

The key aims of the Act include: reduce all greenhouse gases (except methane) to net zero by 2050, reduce emissions of biogenic methane (produced from biological sources) up to 24-47 percent below 2017 levels by 2050 and to 10 percent below 2017 levels by 2030, establish an independent Climate Change Commission and establish a system of emissions budget.

The terms ‘net zero emissions’ and ‘carbon neutrality’ are interchangeable.The core meaning of both is the need to achieve ecological balance between activities that emit climate pollution and processes that reduce the impact of that pollution to zero or close to zero.
Both terms mean a phase out of fossil fuel emissions accompanied by a phase in of energy efficiency and renewable energy complemented by measures to bring down emissions from agriculture and forestry so as to achieve overall ecological balance.