“If we took all our agricultural emissions out of our emissions profile, and left all China’s manufacturing in their profile, our emissions would still be twice theirs per capita.

“We are among the richest nations in the world and we have access to technologies that should we choose to, we can reduce our emissions… We can afford it, and arguing that because we are little we won’t make a difference, would have meant that every New Zealander who ever fought in any war wasted their effort.” – Rod Carr, Chair of the Climate Change Commission

If we’re honest and include our agricultural emissions (48% of our total emissions), we’re using more than six times our fair share of the carbon budget to keep global temperatures below 1.5°C. We rank 44th out of 45 of the world’s industrialised countries.

There are lots of different ways you can argue about how little a difference each of us might make. If you only count countries with a population over 1 million, and you only look at 2021, we’re only the 13th worst country (left column on the graph below).

But the right column on the same graph tells a different story:  per person we’re responsible for more cumulative carbon emissions than any other country (with populations over 1 million) on Earth.

We can’t ignore our collective responsibility to help undo this mess, because the cost of doing nothing will be far greater than an embarrassing graph.

“The time is now, Ināia tonu nei, to lead the change we want to see and to remain steadfast to the values that underpin our nationhood—values like whanaungatanga kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga.” – Climate Change Commission