Ministry for the Environment | Manatū mō te Taiao

Ever heard of 'rivers' in the sky that can cause heavy rain and floods? NIWA researchers have been exploring how atmospheric rivers could impact Aotearoa New Zealand's rainfall in the future. Atmospheric rivers are bands of moisture in the atmosphere that can cause heavy downpours. The NIWA team used climate projections specific to New Zealand to carry out their analysis. They found that the country could face twice as many of the extreme atmospheric rivers by the end of the century. The Ministry for the Environment worked with NIWA to release the projections last year (https://bit.ly/3DDWM2d). 📹 NIWA An example of an extreme atmospheric river impacting New Zealand in high-resolution climate model simulations produced at NIWA. White shading shows elevated atmospheric water vapour and red shading shows extreme rainfall.

Are you a climate expert? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is calling for authors to support its next round of climate change reports. The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. It brings together experts from across the world to look at the science of climate change, its impacts, and how it can be tackled. The Ministry for the Environment is the national focal point for the IPCC in Aotearoa New Zealand and manages author nominations. Experts who would like to be nominated to take part in the IPCC's Seventh Assessment are invited to apply by April 10. You don't have to have worked with the IPCC before, and experts with diverse knowledge and expertise related to climate change are invited to apply. The IPCC is also looking for experts who can provide data support for the assessment. Explore the criteria for the roles, what is involved, and how to apply: https://lnkd.in/gTRpwxTi

Your car ➡️ processing plant ➡️manufacturers ➡️ playground safety mat Have a swipe through the photos above to see the process. It’s as easy as that for the 2 million tyres that have passed through the Tyrewise industry-led stewardship scheme. You read that right - 2 million‼️ Got worn out tyres? No problem! Leave them with your retailer or fitter when they’re replaced or check out the list of registered public collection sites so that your tyres can end up with a new purpose - maybe as an artificial sports field! To fund this work the Government introduced a stewardship fee on regulated tyres in March 2024. Since 1 September 2024, Tyrewise has been fully operational, with the stewardship fee replacing the ad-hoc tyre fees charged by many retailers. #ProductStewardship #Tyrewise #Tyres

🍽️ The average restaurant meal creates 171 grams of food waste—but what food item is being tossed the most? Each year, Aotearoa’s cafes and restaurants generate nearly 25,000 tonnes of food waste, with around 60 per cent of it entirely avoidable. When food ends up in landfill, it’s rots and produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. We’re proud to support the Restaurant Association of New Zealand and Edge Impact with Kai Keepers, a new initiative aimed at changing food waste practices across cafes and restaurants in Auckland and the Bay of Plenty. 🌏 In the first phase of the two-and-a-half-year pilot programme, Kai Keepers measured the scale of the challenge. They found (from 120 participating venues): ❌ 13 tonnes of total food wasted (from 108,730 meals) 💸 $102,000 lost in value in just 7 days 🥗 Most wasted items? Sauces, veggies, garnishes, meat & eggs (including shells). Kai Keepers are now trialling strategies to see what will have the most impact on the food industry. We’ll keep you updated on what they find out! 👉 Read the findings on the Kai Keepers website: https://bit.ly/43K83s8 Got some food waste ideas? Let us know below! #FoodWaste #Sustainability #Restaurants #ReduceWaste

♻️ How much waste and waste emissions do we create in NZ? More than you might think… 🚮 669kg per person (2023) 🥤 4.5% of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions These are problems the new waste strategy, announced today, is trying to tackle: reducing environmental and economic harm caused by waste and waste emissions. Cutting down to the core - these are the five outcomes the strategy looks to achieve: 1) Reducing waste disposal per person 2) Increasing reuse and recycling 3) Cutting emissions and environmental harm from waste and litter 4) Ensuring facilities such as recycling and disposal plants minimise their environmental impacts 5) Limiting the harm caused by contaminated sites. Flick through the slides above to have a look at a few ways these goals might be reached! The good news? 72% of Kiwis say they’re already working to cut waste! 🙌 Take a look at the strategy here: https://lnkd.in/gfcPuTgv #ReduceWaste #Sustainability #NZEnvironment

Congratulations to Climate Connect Aotearoa on the launch of ClimateWise, a new platform to help small and medium-sized enterprises plan for climate change. The platform is live now, and businesses can explore practical tools, insights, and real-world case studies.

Eight policies with the greatest potential to lower our emissions 🌏 The second Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP2), released late last year, has a lot to unpack, so we’ve highlighted 8 key actions with the biggest climate impact. 🌱✨ The reduction between 2026-2030 from the below policies will be the equivalent of travelling from Auckland to Wellington 14.3 million times in a medium petrol-powered car (3.2 Mt CO₂-e) over that period 🚗 These policies are: -More renewable energy projects. -Recognising carbon capture, utilisation and storage in the NZ ETS -10,000 EV charging points by 2030 -Introducing agricultural emissions pricing systems by 2030 and incentivising the uptake of new technologies -Exploring private-sector partnerships to plant trees on Crown-owned land which has low conservation value and low farming value -Potent greenhouse gases can be found in heating and cooling products - so a regulated product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants will be introduced from 2025 to reduce environmental impact. -Leveraging the Waste Minimisation Fund to enable resource recovery systems and infrastructure to process organic waste -Improving organic waste management and landfill gas capture to increase landfill gas recovery rates We’ll be digging a bit deeper into ERP2 over the coming weeks, every Monday, so stay tuned! If you’re eager to read ahead though, check out the ERP2 summary document: https://bit.ly/3QFfx83

Want to have a say on the biggest climate change risks facing Aotearoa New Zealand? Evidence is being pulled together by the Climate Change Commission for the next Climate Change Risk Assessment. This will help inform New Zealand’s next national Adaptation Plan. National adaptation plans are released every six years and set out the Government's strategies, policies and proposals to help New Zealanders adapt to the changing climate and its effects – so we can reduce the potential harm of climate change, as well as seize the opportunities that arise. Have your say in the link below!

You can now explore projected changes to Aotearoa New Zealand’s climate in even more detail. Projections showing potential changes to temperature, wind and rainfall over the rest of the century are available via a downloadable dataset, map and dashboard on our website. Making climate and risk information more available is a focus of the Government's climate strategy, which is why we worked with @ NIWA to make these projections publicly available last year. We have now released projections for an additional climate change scenario, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s ‘fossil-fuel intensive development’ scenario, and added the individual data for each of the six climate models which NIWA combined to develop the climate projections. Explore the projections here: https://lnkd.in/giRyc6Hq

The Matihetihe Marae in Mitimiti, Northland will get an upgraded reticulation system to ensure safe drinking water is provided to nearby households, the local kura and the marae. Funding for the upgrade, announced by Climate Change Minister Simon Watts earlier this month, will come through the Māori Climate Platform as part of its first climate resilience pilot project. The Mitimiti community is vulnerable to adverse and extreme weather that impacts the marae water treatment plant and compromises drinking water safety. This pilot project will inform other climate initiatives that may receive funding under the Māori Climate Platform. The Māori Climate Platform was developed to support climate action, knowledge and skills for and by Māori to benefit New Zealand’s climate response. The other potential pilot projects will align with the Government’s climate strategy, be selected to ensure geographic diversity, and be a mix of projects that help prepare communities for climate change and help reduce emissions. Learn more about the Māori Climate Platform here: https://bit.ly/41bz3ix