Air NZ’s bold climate ambitions undone by stark reality

In December 2021, as the country grappled with the Covid-19 traffic light system, the national carrier flashed a green light of its own.
“Despite the Covid-19 pandemic grinding our business to halt, we believe climate change is the biggest crisis facing our airline,” Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran said.
“If anything, our commitment to take real action has only strengthened.”
The airline announced it was setting a science-based carbon reduction target for 2030, of a 28.9 percent reduction on 2019 levels. It also wanted sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) – made from the likes of cooking oils, forestry waste, and green hydrogen – to make up 10 percent of total fuel use by 2030.
Even then, in late 2021, however, bold ambitions were already butting up against stark realities.
Newsroom Pro editor Jonathan Milne reported its carbon reduction target would soon be redundant, the airline’s carbon intensity had actually been climbing, and it was struggling to find a reliable supply of SAF. Even its conservative decarbonisation milestones were out of reach.
Two years later, the airline announced it had bought its first fully electric aircraft. On the same day, Christchurch International Airport said it had achieved a “new standard for decarbonisation”.
But the following week there was more scepticism.
Professor of Tourism at Brisbane’s Griffith University, James Higham, asked questions of Air New Zealand’s “Flight NZ0” campaign, in the context of increasing scrutiny of the aviation industry’s sustainability claims, and a rise in litigation against airlines for greenwashing.
SAF would have to overcome “significant scientific, energy, scalability and cost barriers”, Higham wrote, with solutions “likely to be decades away at least”.
“As consumers and environmentalists focus more on the validity of climate claims and the viability of carbon reduction strategies, Air New Zealand may find it harder to defend its net zero pathway.”
This week, Foran’s near-term climate ambitions crumbled.
Air New Zealand dropped its 2030 carbon intensity reduction target, and said it would withdraw from the Science-Based Targets Initiative. Its 2050, net-zero target remains.
The target had been put in the too hard basket, the NZ Herald reported, as the airline struggled to source new, more efficient aircraft, and find alternative jet fuels that were affordable and available.
A Reuters story, which noted the tight global supply of SAF, was headlined: “Air New Zealand dumps 2030 carbon intensity targets in climate policy shift.”
Air New Zealand’s Flight NZ0 website on the 2030 target said, simply: “This site is currently under review.”
Simon Wallace, chief executive of the Aviation Industry Association which counts Air New Zealand among its members, says the airline wanted to replace its Boeing 777 aircraft with 787 Dreamliners, which use 20 percent less fuel.
But given the plethora of high-profile problems dogging Boeing, the company was producing less than five of the aircraft per month.
“That has meant that Air New Zealand, as a customer, has had to completely look at its fleet and where it will be at in 2030, and it’s not going to be able to meet those targets.”
Wallace is confident the airline will come up with a new target, but he’s reluctant to predict when new technologies, like electric- or hydrogen-powered aircraft, might be in routine use across Aotearoa.
“It’s some way off,” he says. “A lot of it depends on having the infrastructure.”
The association, an advocacy and lobby group for the commercial aviation industry, briefed the new coalition Government last year, after the election. Wallace told ministers its more than 200 members – including tourist flight companies, top-dressing pilots and helicopter contractors – wanted to reduce their carbon emissions.
“If we are to move away from fossil fuels, if we are to use hydrogen and electric, for example, then we do need some Government support for that to happen.”
After a meeting in Brisbane yesterday, Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts released a joint statement with their Australian counterparts which outlined plans for greater collaboration, including “investigating the conditions required to develop a regional sustainable aviation fuel industry”.
Ralph Sims is emeritus professor of sustainable energy and climate mitigation at Massey University.
“We’ve always known aviation emissions will be very difficult to reduce,” he says via email. “Air New Zealand is not the only airline struggling to do so.”
The Climate Change Commission’s emissions reduction monitoring report, released yesterday, says there are “significant risks” to the country delivering a reduction in aviation emissions intensity.
“Domestic aviation data shows emissions increasing from a low point in 2020 with no clear sign of declining passenger air travel. This is likely to also mean there is no clear sign of emissions reductions.”
Increased use of SAF should be a priority, the commission’s report suggests, but there’s uncertainty about the development, timelines and funding for a mandate.
Sims says it’s disappointing Air New Zealand has withdrawn from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). “Their experiences, even if challenging to date, could possibly make a useful contribution, and would keep Air New Zealand up to speed with any international developments.”
Interestingly, something else to emerge yesterday was a story from environmental news website Heatmap, featuring New Zealand climate scientist Andy Reisinger, whose recent paper criticised SBTi.
Sims issues this warning: “Given the lack of interest in climate change by the current Government, and the failure of the emissions trading scheme to date, I imagine other companies will lose any enthusiasm to try and reduce their emissions.”
Transport Minister Simeon Brown said the Government’s target was net-zero emissions by 2050, and it is committed to achieving its climate goals.
“I regularly meet with a range of aviation stakeholders to listen to their perspective on issues facing the aviation sector. I have no comment on the commercial decisions of Air New Zealand.”
A paper published last year in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand said this country had some of the highest, per-capita greenhouse gas emissions from aviation in the world.
Our increasing use of air travel was incompatible with Paris Agreement climate targets, the paper’s authors said.
UK-based Sir Jonathon Porritt, who chaired Air NZ’s sustainability advisory panel for nearly eight years, once described the airline as “the world’s last unsustainable airline”.
Last year, in his parting blog post, Porritt agreed with UN secretary-general António Guterres that climate change is out of control, adding: “Yes, as any fool can tell, the aviation industry is also out of control.”
With the help of new technologies, Porritt predicted people would benefit from genuinely sustinable flying, occasionally and expensively, “but unfortunately not until 2040 at the earliest”.
Higham, of Griffith University, says Air NZ’s decision to scrap its 2030 targets means aviation exceptionalism on climate action must end.
“This decision only reinforces the fact that, under the current technical regime, aviation emissions are difficult or impossible to mitigate in the absence of demand management.”
SBTi targets for emissions intensity cover the emissions produced per revenue passenger kilometre. That’s a somewhat misleading target, Higham says.  
“This is because emissions intensity gains have been historically overwhelmed by demand growth.  
“Gross aviation emissions continue to rise despite emission intensity reductions because airlines continue to actively expand their networks and increase total passenger movements.” 
There are ways to reduce aviation emissions.
Sims says freight should be shifted by ship, where possible, and people should avoid non-essential journeys, like weekend shopping trips to Australia’s east coast.
If flights have to be made, passengers should offset their emissions, Sims says.
“Given a flight from New Zealand to Europe produces similar emissions per passenger as a diesel or petrol car emits in a year, that’s not easy.”
European airlines are banned from flying short-haul trips where a fast train is an alternative, but that’s not a consideration in New Zealand.
There’s probably little downside for Air NZ dropping its targets, Sims says, because only a small proportion of people will avoid flying just to save emissions, “and Air NZ knows this”.
Given the deepening climate crisis, this is a huge problem.
For years, scientists have warned a deep and rapid reduction in carbon emissions is needed to hit international ambitions of restricting post-industrial warming to below 1.5 degrees, thus avoiding the worst and most damaging effects on humans and ecosystems.
Just last week, global temperatures spiked to the four hottest days ever recorded, raising concerns the world is approaching irreversible tipping points – like collapsing ice sheets, thawing permafrost, and the total loss of tropical coral reefs.
The concentration of carbon in the atmosphere is at its highest level for 3 million years.
Back in 2015, Air NZ’s boss warned the threat to planetary boundaries were “the biggest threat of all”. Businesses don’t have the luxury of choice between growth and sustainability, he wrote – “we have to have both”.
“I am convinced businesses that address the direct concerns of citizens and the needs of the environment will prosper over the long term. Therefore it’s important we build new business models that will enable responsible sustainable growth.”
He called for greater collaboration between businesses, the community, and government.
Those inspiring words of urgency and responsibility, from Air New Zealand chief executive Christopher Luxon in 2015, will no doubt resonate with the current prime minister – Christopher Luxon.