Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
A global effort to audit countries' responses to climate change found New Zealand has strong laws but could do better.
The ClimateScanner project involved more than 100 national audit bodies including New Zealand's Auditor-General's office.
Weak points in this country included showing how public spending relates to climate change goals, and a lack of formal pathways for local and central governments to work together.
The report was tabled in Parliament on Thursday.
It said there was a lack of clarity about how government plans for agriculture and energy would actually reduce emissions.
All countries were assessed using the same tool. Countries were assessed on whether governments had plans and policies in place for responding to climate change, and whether they were implementing them, but did not look at whether the policies were appropriate or effective.
In a statement AuditorGeneral John Ryan said: "All governments need to take action to respond to climate change and its effects.
"The international consensus is that, to manage global temperature rise, action is needed in the next decade."
The report found that "in many ways... our legislative framework is a strength of our response to climate change", Ryan said.
"However, New Zealand did not rate as highly in other areas and the public sector needs to make improvements in some key areas to respond to these challenges."
Weak spots in agriculture, energy and transparency of spending
Weak points included the lack of formal mechanisms for central and local government to systematically work together on climate change policy.
The report found public reporting of spending on climate initiatives needed to improve, so spending could be matched to government climate goals.
The New Zealand assessment also found more needed to be done to progress plans for reducing emissions and adapting to climate change in certain sectors.
These included agriculture, energy and preparing for disasters.
On agriculture, the Auditor-General said the government's plans to cut emissions focused on research and new technology (for example, methane-cutting medicines for cows) and "we cannot yet see a clear pathway between these plans and actual emissions reduction".
"Research and development is an important phase, but until it results in effective, commercially available tools or products for reducing emissions, there is uncertainty about whether it will actually reduce emissions by the amount required," the report said.
On energy, it said: "Key actions in the energy sector are at an early stage and lack detail about how they will lead to reductions in emissions."
The Auditor-General's office acknowledged the government's Electrify New Zealand promise to double renewable energy by smoothing the consenting process for new developments.
However it said: "Electrify New Zealand is still at an early stage of development," and while the government was counting on the policy delivering carbon savings "it is not entirely clear how those reductions will be achieved".
The report also highlighted uncertainty about how the government would meet its climate target under the Paris Agreement.
The official strategy - lodged with the UN - is to meet the target using a mixture of international markets (buying emissions saving action from overseas) and domestic emissions reductions.
"However, we have not seen a clear strategy for how this will be achieved," the report said.
Brazil's national audit office will pull together ClimateScanner reports from around the world and present the early results at the 2024 world climate summit (COP29) in Azerbaijan, which runs from 11-22 November.