Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ environmental reporting looks at the pressures, state and impacts on the environment and tracks change over time. Here are some key findings from Our atmosphere and climate 2017.

Climate change may have already had an irreversible impact on New Zealand's natural systems and the effects are likely to worsen, a new Government report says.

Data showed conclusively that temperatures had already risen by one degree in New Zealand, which would have an impact on the economy, extreme weather events, biodiversity and health.

The Our Climate and Atmosphere report, released by the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) and Statistics New Zealand on Thursday, revealed the country's glaciers had lost nearly a quarter of their ice since 1977, and sea levels had risen between 14 centimetres and 22cm at four main ports since 1916.

ALDEN WILLIAMS/STUFF Flooding in Canterbury this year. Such events are likely to become more frequent due to climate change.

Meanwhile, our contribution to global greenhouse emissions had increased and sea level and temperature rises were forecast to gain momentum.

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Soils in some areas had become drier and both the acidity and the temperature of the ocean had risen.

IAN FULLER Fox Glacier in 2014. Our shrinking glaciers are a sign of a warming climate.

Last year was the country's warmest year since records began and the five warmest years on record had occurred in the last 20 years.

The number of extreme weather events had increased, as had the insurance cost of those events, Insurance Council of New Zealand data showed.

New Zealand had the fifth-highest emission levels per person in the OECD, the report said.

Since 1990, gross emissions increased 24 per cent, while net emissions increased 64 per cent. Net emissions accounted for carbon stored in forests, which was released when they were cut down.

Our high rate of emissions was attributed to an unusually large share of agriculture emissions and high car-ownership rates.

"While New Zealand is not a large contributor of emissions globally, we are certainly affected locally and we need to act on what that means for us," secretary for the environment Vicky Robertson said.

The scope of the report did not include recommendations for tackling emissions and Robertson said the purpose was to open the conversation.

"We are working quite significantly to bring together all the public services towards advising collectively and consistently around what government could do to create a pathway to our 2030 targets."

Current targets were to reduce greenhouse emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The document singles out transport as a key driver of increased emissions, which had jumped 78 per cent since 1990 and now equated to 18 per cent overall.

However, agriculture emissions sat far higher, constituting just under half of overall emissions and had also climbed significantly in the same period.

Robertson said the report had not sought to downplay agriculture's impact and she would not be shying away from it in policy advice.

While New Zealand's emissions had continued to climb, the United Kingdom reduced its emissions by 26 per cent from 1990 to 2013, Sweden by 25 per cent, and France by 11 per cent.

Robertson refused to give New Zealand a scorecard on its performance to-date, but said now was the time to make changes.

"The future impacts of climate change on our lives all depend on how fast global emissions are reduced and the extent to which our communities can adapt to change."

University of Otago environmental epidemiologist Simon Hales said the main takeaway was that the country was not living up to its international obligations on climate change.

"We require a much better, more quantitative understanding of the likely adverse impacts of climate change on human health than the brief, vague statements in the MfE report."

Climate change would likely have an impact on our already struggling biodiversity.

Research showed there was already a growing imbalance in the gender split of tuatara.

Warmer temperatures in tuatara nests were more likely to produce male offspring; on North Brother Island in the Cook Strait, the ratio of male to female tuatara had increased from 1:66 to 2:36 in recent decades.

Warmer temperatures also increased the wasp population in beech forests, which resulted in less food for native species, and the frequency of masts (tree seed dropping), creating food for rodents, which attract predators.

"We can expect to face possibly costly decisions around how we manage the effects of a changing climate for our unique and celebrated native biodiversity," the report said.

Climate change would also affect the economy and our physical and mental health, although the extent for both was not yet clear.

Rising sea levels and increasing extreme weather events would affect coastal communities, likely requiring some communities to move.

An earlier risk census determined around $19 billion worth of buildings were at risk of rising sea levels.

Drier conditions in some areas would have an impact on agriculture and the rates of some diseases may increase, as well as exposure to heat waves, flooding and fires.

The report also determined the atmosphere's "ozone hole", to which high levels of melanoma in Australia and New Zealand are attributed, was shrinking.

It had decreased 21 per cent from its largest size, which was reached in 2006, and may no longer exist mid-way through the century.

It was largely due to a global effort to reduce the usage of ozone depleting substances, such as those in refrigeration and air conditioning equipment.

Niwa atmospheric researcher Richard McKenzie said the report was heartening, but the country still had to be vigilant.

"The situation is delicate at present and we remain at risk from possible effects from future volcanic eruptions."

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