Air New Zealand's found it's harder than it thought to claim green credentials when your business is burning fossil fuel to transport people around the world
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A Boeing Dreamliner 787-9, from the Air New Zealand fleet. Photo: Supplied/ Air NZ
Search for Air New Zealand's big bold climate action plan and you get a black screen with the words "this site is under review".
Dubbed Flight NZO (zero), the airline called it its "most important journey yet"; its commitment to finding a more sustainable way to connect with the world by buying greener planes and using greener fuel.
That journey has been disrupted after the airline dropped its 2030 goal to reduce carbon intensity by nearly a third from its 2019 baseline. It has also pulled out of the Science-Based Targets initiative, a scheme involving corporates around the world.
The airline says it is sticking with the goal of net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050 and it is working on a new "near-term carbon emissions reduction target that could better reflect the challenges relating to aircraft and alternative jet fuel availability within the industry".
The move comes as airlines around the world face court action over their sustainability claims, so called greenwashing. Newsroom's David Williams says the sceptics of Air New Zealand's climate ambitions, including Tourism Professor James Higham, had warned early on that they would face greater scrutiny.
"I guess he's saying that it's very hard for an airline to claim environmental exceptionalism. It's not exceptional in terms of its ability to reduce its carbon footprint.
"So he would say there needs to be a bit more reality about what they're saying about their sustainability."
Despite the move, Williams says the airline is seen as a sustainability leader by the industry, particularly for its offsets programme where customers can opt to pay for tree planting to offset their emissions.
"And there's all sorts of things you can do at the airport as well to save energy and to not emit carbon but actually the big one is the big source of your emissions and that is flying planes. It's really hard to say you're an environmental leader when you're burning fossil fuels all the time."
The airline's announcement came on the same day that the Climate Change Commission warned that New Zealand risks missing key emissions targets under current government policies.
Newsroom's Marc Daalder says people often find the stories confusing and discouraging but there was some optimistic news in the same report.
"We either want to hear that we're doing well or we're not doing well but the message often takes a little bit more nuance than that.
"That report said on the one hand New Zealand's emissions have fallen every year in a row since 2019. That same report says we may be on track to meet our near term emissions targets but we're not on track to meet our medium and long-term emissions targets."
He explains to The Detail why government policies have played only a small part in the reductions to date; and why we're now not on target for net zero 2050 emissions. For example, he says, the goals are ambitious and require deep cuts to the climate pollution produced from transport, energy, industry, waste and households.
Compared with most other developed countries New Zealand's emissions are higher per capita, mainly due to our agriculture. Our net zero 2050 targets are also less ambitious because they do not include agriculture.
"We've got less stringent targets, we're just getting started on our journey and at the same time we now have a government that is cancelling a lot of climate policies, reworking the emissions plan and producing new plans that don't have us on track to meet our targets.
"There are other countries that are facing backslides on climate or are at risk of doing so, like the United States, but New Zealand is part of a smaller core of countries that are actually taking backsteps on climate."
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