In four years’ time, under a climate change pathway adopted by Auckland Transport and Auckland Council in 2022, private vehicle trips in the city should have fallen by half and trips on buses and trains increased nine times. Those targets and a goal to increase walking, cycling and scooter trips by 17 times from 2022 to the decade’s end, all aimed to cut the city’s overall transport emissions by 64 percent from 2016 levels. The Transport Emissions Reduction Pathway (TERP) was bold, but those behind
it said it supported the then government’s nationwide emissions cut plans, which in turn met the Paris climate agreement’s goal of emissions kept to 1.5% more globally by 2030. Now, at the halfway point towards that year, none of those aims seem achievable, partly caused by reduced funding from central government. Efforts by some on the Auckland Council over the past year to re-assess what could be done to cut emissions and work out how to fund measures to achieve future cuts have led to
a rare standoff between elected councillors and council staff. In May 2025, the council voted to seek a ‘realistic’ appraisal from Auckland Transport and council staff of whether the TERP could meet its goals, and where the money to fund the initiatives would come from. It is yet to receive advice it finds acceptable. So much so, that at the transport and infrastructure delivery committee’s May meeting, the chairman, Councillor Andy Baker, moved a vote to reject a report on the TERP issues from senior
executives and to demand a re-do by July. That was passed, requiring officials to provide a baseline forecast of estimated emissions reductions from current planned investments, and to show how this would fit into a new long-term, 10-year plan to be debated from later this year. Councillor Maurice Williamson has led the charge for a re-assessment of the transport emissions targets and was scathing of what he alleged was foot-dragging by officials who had let the May 2025 request disappear into oblivion. “This disappeared completely
from the radar. I believe a resolution passed unanimously does not deserve to have radio silence and disappear from the scene. It has been the most egregious process to get some response.” Williamson said the request a year ago had been a first step to finding out what if anything in the TERP was still doable. But it had been ignored and set aside without explanation to elected politicians. “I can’t believe we run a process where something could disappear and no matter how many
times a councillor raises something it stays in oblivion.” He says the current pathway cannot be delivered. “What’s currently in the TERP, I’m sorry to say is … you’ve got to have been smoking something really good if you think it’s got any validity. A 550 percent increase in public transport use. You cannot be serious. “A 50 percent reduction in private vehicle kilometres travelled, by three years from now. “We have got to get rid of the old TERP,” he said. “I want to
get to a realistic set of emissions that we can all sign up to and balance them against the other priorities we have in the long-term plan.” Williamson complained that when he’d tried to get the councillors’ request answered he’d been told staff were too busy dealing with the re-integration of Auckland Transport’s strategy and planning, and roading authority, functions into the Auckland Council. That is due, after a law change passed early in May, to take effect late this year. The council’s chief executive,
Phil Wilson, spoke at the beginning of the committee debate to try to explain “the lengthy period of time and undue delay” in meeting the elected councillors’ requirement for a response. “I do apologise to the chamber for that. Today only partially, to a limited degree, meets your expectations and that’s why there’s been a chairman’s recommendation to bring it back in July.” He committed to return with a report that could help councillors assess transport emission reduction measures as part of the next 10-year
plan. “How much are we investing in this area and what should we expect in terms of measurable progress, a balance between a pathway as it’s framed versus a cold hard plan which we can and should expect measurable progress on?” Baker told Newsroom the report that did come back for his committee this month included one paragraph that simply admitted staff hadn’t done the work as it was not a priority for them. “For me, that was certainly not acceptable. I took the option
of rejecting the report and sending a little message that when we ask for something to be done we expect it to be done.” Baker said there was general agreement that transport emissions needed addressing. “It’s a good opportunity to re-look at that and see what’s achievable and set some realistic targets and try and get there. And to try and include some of it into the long-term plan.” Asked if the targets for emissions cuts would likely be lower, he said: “Oh yeah. If
you read some of the public transport patronage things, we will never get there in my lifetime. It was very aspirational, it would be fair to say.” The ‘rejected’ report, in the name of Michael Roth, the council’s lead transport advisor and authorised by two directors and a general manager, defended the original TERP as identifying “a pathway of ‘what would need to be true’ to deliver the 64 percent reduction in the region’s transport emissions by 2030. “It is a valuable and technically legitimate
way of working through options and scenarios to achieve an outcome. Delivering a reduction in regional transport emissions of this magnitude and within these timeframes requires rapid change to the way people and goods move around the region.” It reported that a progress snapshot in 2025 on the council’s wider climate change plan showed regional transport emissions had risen slightly, not fallen. “Reducing transport emissions was highlighted as being the greatest challenge to achieving the regional emission reduction goal.” No figures are provided in the
‘rejected’ report for how much private vehicle kilometres travelled have changed or what the uplift in cycling, walking and scootering has been. “An increase in population has resulted in a smaller increase in vehicle travel, balanced with a slight improvement in average emissions per vehicle, leading to little change in total transport emissions.” A 2023 study funded by the NZ Transport Agency had found it would cost $20 billion by 2035 to achieve a 35 percent cut in vehicle kilometres travelled. That cost would compete
with other mooted transport expenditure, but also reduce the need for some of those other projects which would cater for growth in car travel. “The TERP was clear, however, that it is not realistic to expect substantial reductions in transport emissions unless there is significant reform of the way in which transport and land use planning are undertaken in Auckland.” The Roth report said the pending long-term plan process gave councillors the chance to provide direction on the “relative priority they wish to assign emissions
reduction vis-à-vis the other transport outcomes.” A review by the council’s Chief Sustainability Officer of the broader climate plan would also be an opportunity to re-examine the regional transport emission goal. In a section on financial implications of cutting transport emissions, the report says the public investment needed to achieve the current TERP target “is likely greater than council and government’s ability to currently fund. “Substantial progress would require government to co-fund the measures that reduce emissions. At this stage, government has not provided guidance
on any new funding programs to deliver emissions reductions or improve energy security.” Perhaps anticipating any political watering down of transport emissions reduction targets, the report notes “the key risk to council posed by TERP, which has no statutory obligations, is reputational if the council is perceived as not making sufficient contribution to the regional transport emission goal.” And it warns that “delayed action on emissions reduction is likely to be more expensive than taking it now… Any system change must confront a strong status
quo bias and will require active championing by council to ensure public buy-in.”
Auckland Council, Auckland Transport, TERP, transport emissions reduction pathway, climate change, long-term plan, Andy Baker, Maurice Williamson, Michael Roth, Phil Wilson