The five infuriating truths of Air New Zealand’s decision to scrap its carbon targets
I have some really fun and uplifting local stories coming. I promise. But I couldn’t let this go.
Two years ago, Air New Zealand announced they were going to reduce their carbon pollution by 16.3% by 2030, using a mix of sustainable aviation fuel, efficient planes, and moonshot technologies.
On Tuesday, they said their goal wasn’t feasible, scrapped their target, and pulled out of the organisation they joined to reduce carbon emissions.
My first reaction, as I’m sure is true with many people, was disappointment and anger. So I started looking into the whole situation. I found five infuriating truths about eliminating carbon from flying.
Infuriating Truth 1: Aviation is one of the hardest industries to make net zero.
Cutting carbon pollution out of flying, especially international flights, is hard. Really hard.
Jet fuel is a remarkably potent fuel – it stores a ridiculous amount of energy in not that much weight. It’s because of this that the world has 19 hour non stop flights between Auckland and New York. To replace it, there aren’t many feasible options.
Batteries hold less energy per kilogram of weight, meaning planes will weigh significantly more to get the same amount of power. Electric planes would also need to carry that weight the entire time, unlike jet fuel. These facts make electric planes harder to fly internationally, and shortens their maximum distance. Electric planes, at least as they are right now, aren’t realistic for international flights.
Another alternative is biofuels. That’s fuel made with plants, which can be used in existing jets but pollutes less than regular jet fuel. Air New Zealand was relying on a lot of that to reach its target, but Air New Zealand says it’s too expensive now to reach its goal.There’s also severe doubt that biofuels are even possible to fully replace jet fuel by 2050.
The last alternative is hydrogen powered planes. Hydrogen fuel is made with electricity and burnt to make energy. The only emissions from hydrogen is water, so the pollution only comes from the electricity to make it.
The problem is twofold. First, green hydrogen is wildly inefficient compared to batteries. Up to 80% of the energy used to create hydrogen is lost when making it. It’s also such a new technology that it’s not even close to being commercially viable. It might get there before 2050 but it is a moonshot in the next six years.
That’s the first infuriating truth. There hasn’t been an incredible breakthrough in hydrogen or batteries, and biofuel hasn’t gotten cheaper. So, cutting Air New Zealand’s pollution by 16% would only be possible with fewer flights and replacing their entire fleet. According to them, replacing the fleet just isn’t possible in time. With all that in mind, I can see how Air New Zealand evaluated their promise, realised it was unrealistic, and decided to dump it.
Infuriating Truth 2: Despite this, the target has been used for the last few years to add to their brand capital.
Air New Zealand has been running big ad campaigns for the last two years promoting this abandoned promise and their net zero target for 2050.
They won a marketing award in 2023 for “NZ0” – their marketing campaign which boasted all those technologies above as feasible solutions to their problems. They made a video about their first zero emissions flight in 2026 saying that “when things get tough, that’s when we get stubborn.” They called their journey to net zero their “most important journey yet.”
They even built an entire website for the campaign explaining their decarbonisation plan. They’ve since tried to pull it from public view, but forgot that the internet is written in ink.
When they announced this target, they said it would “set the airline up for success in its net zero 2050 target.” They also said:
“In a sector where it will be challenging to make rapid and authentic change, Air New Zealand is to be congratulated on setting this science-based target to demonstrate its sincerity of intent. A 16.3% absolute reduction by 2030 is certainly achievable, but it will be hard. And its readiness to be held to account by the SBTi (and other stakeholders) is significant.”
The infuriating truth is that they banked a lot of brand capital by saying they were committed to climate action. They said it would be hard, but that they were willing to be held to account. That was, until it actually got hard.
Infuriating Truth 3: Aviation is a tiny proportion of New Zealand’s pollution.
Out of all the ways one person can move around, flying is the most carbon intense per kilometre. With that in mind, how much did domestic aviation contribute to New Zealand’s 2022 emissions? 20%? 10%?
Nope. Aviation is responsible for 1.3%.
When I began writing this article, that honestly shocked me. Compare that figure to road transport which is 15.8% of our total emissions. Or agriculture, which is 60% of our total emissions.
The infuriating reality is that while flying is a big part of an individual’s carbon footprint, if New Zealand wants to go net zero the focus needs to be on bigger sections of the pie. Politicians need to do things like cut agricultural emissions, or switch every car to be an EV.
The shocking reality is that if we banned all domestic flights in New Zealand tomorrow, it would reduce emissions about as much as electrifying the coal furnaces at the Glenbrook Steel Mill.
Infuriating Truth 4: Aviation is also a tiny proportion of the world’s pollution.
You might have noticed I only said domestic flights. I’ve found out that the Ministry for the Environment’s emissions tracker only includes domestic flights, not international ones. Maybe that’s where all the emissions are hiding…
Again, no. Aviation is 1.9% of global emissions as of 2016 (the most recent data I could find).
Compare that to road transport, which is 11.8%. Agriculture, 18.4%. Cement has a bigger carbon footprint as a sector than aviation.
The infuriating truth is that across the world, cutting carbon pollution requires the same usual solutions as it always has: electrifying everything to run on renewable electricity, and having more efficient agriculture that produces more plants and less meat.
Infuriating Truth 5: New Zealand can reach its own 2030 goals with aviation staying exactly the same.
Here’s the last infuriating truth: while aviation continues to invest in moon shot technologies, New Zealand and the world could halve emissions with aviation emitting exactly the same amount.
New Zealand could fast-track developing a modern railway system for freight and reduce our trucking emissions. Subsidies for EVs could come back with a vengeance and put an end to petrol vehicles. There could be a price on farming emissions, and farmers could switch to raising sheep instead of cows and cut their emissions per kilo of meat by 60%.
We have an incredible set of existing methods to cut climate pollution from our biggest polluting industries. A genuine question I have is, should we make aviation the first industry to decarbonise with very few feasible options when the nation can get started on eliminating petrol cars right now? When the maximum benefit of decarbonising aviation is cutting emissions by 1.3%, I think my answer is no.
Why I think this news is still important…
I landed on an opinion I didn’t think I’d expect in writing this (pun absolutely intended). Yet, I still feel concerned about this news. Why?
It’s because this moment is when the reality of climate targets starts to set in. Companies and governments announced some ambitious goals in the first half of this decade. The fact that Air New Zealand aligned itself to sustainability and still dumped the target shows how at risk these ambitious goals are.
My very first article was about how the Wellington Regional Council set an ambitious target for itself that its own plans won’t achieve. Simon Watts, the Climate Minister, got so close to saying we weren’t going to hit our 2030 target on Q+A.
I worry that these targets will fall like dominoes as companies and governments realise that they’re on the hook for more than a marketing award and research budgets. That cutting emissions requires serious policy changes and big investments now.
Worse than that, I worry that it will undermine the world’s goal to be net zero by 2050. If more targets get scrapped, why should people believe that any of it is possible? They’ll believe more and more than it’s bullshit marketing and fall into fatalism.
Aviation may not be easy to decarbonise, but far bigger industries absolutely are. New Zealand is already cutting 1% of its emissions by electrifying half of the Glenbrook Steel Mill. Right now, the focus needs to be on cutting pollution from farming and electrifying everything. Smart people across the world have fought for decades to give us the tools to fight climate change. By luck and hard work, we have them. Let’s use all that incredible technology that’s here right now. It can buy those clever people time to solve low carbon flying next.
Best of all, it keeps the dream of net zero carbon alive.
