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In 2019, New Zealand passed “The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act” which included establishing the Climate Change Commission, a Crown entity to provide independent advice to Government to help Aotearoa transition to a climate-resilient and low emissions future. The Climate Change Commission’s first draft advice was released in January 2021 and, amongst other things, highlighted the opportunity to transition away from fossil fuels for domestic space and water heating. Compared to natural gas or LPG the use of wood burners for domestic heating, while a carbon neutral heating option, has the disadvantage of contributing to the deterioration of local air quality. In order to improve winter air quality, Environment Canterbury (ECan) has introduced a pseudo real-life wood burner authorisation test method known as Canterbury Method One (CM1). Appliances passing the CM1 test method qualify as Ultra-low Emission Burners (ULEBs) and are the only wood burning appliances allowed to be installed into houses within clean air zones in Canterbury. This paper provides updated information on the numbers and design trends of ULEBs authorised to date, and comments on how manufacturers have achieved the ULEB performance limits. The ongoing improvement of ULEBs provides the opportunity to transition away from fossil fuels toward a carbon neutral fuel without generating adverse air pollution impacts. This paper provides a summary of the journey to-date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates seasonal patterns and annual trends of PM10 concentrations in the small town of Mosgiel located in Otago, southern New Zealand. A second aim is to explore the relationship between PM10 concentrations and concomitant meteorological factors. PM10 data were collected intermittently over a seven-year period (1998-2004) using both gravimetric Minovol and Hivol methods. Meteorological data were gathered over the same time period from two sites in the region. Although there has been an increase in annual PM10 concentrations over the period 2001-2004, the small dataset and the high variability precludes drawing firm conclusions. Monthly PM10 levels were at their highest in the winter months of June and July on days with low minimum daily temperatures, low wind speeds and little or no rainfall. the analysis shows that, based on limited data, PM10 exceeded the new national 24-hour PM10 standard of 50µg m-3 to ten times each winter. Given more frequent sampling, it is expected the number of exceedances could be significantly higher, and the Mosgiel area is unlikely to meet the new national standard, which allows only one exceedance of the standard each year. Analysis of meteorological data shows that minimum daily temperature and logarithmically transformed average daily wind-speed and total daily rainfall are all significantly correlated with PM10 concentration, but the correlations are not strong. The study highlights the need for regional authorities to undertake continuous sampling of particulate and more detailed meteorological monitoring close tot the pollution sources in order to better understand the air pollution meteorology of this small town. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]