The Ministry for the Environment has appointed an expert panel to assess climate change amid claims that New Zealand's emission levels are "disturbing".

Climate Change Minister James Shaw said the National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) will provide a national overview of how climate change is likely to impact New Zealand, and will identify the gaps where improvement is needed.

"We need to be assessing now what the future risks of climate change will be, and where and how New Zealand needs to adapt," Shaw said. "We also need to be able to anticipate what our most challenging issues are likely to be."

The announcement comes as data released this month by the ministry's Greenhouse Gas Inventory showed that emissions continued to grow rapidly in 2017, which Greenpeace has labelled "disturbing".

The inventory showed New Zealand's gross emissions increased 2.2 percent between 2016 and 2017, and increased by 23 percent between 1990 and 2017. It prompted Greenpeace executive director Russel Norman to criticise the Zero Carbon Act.

"From what we hear [the Government] will be setting emission reduction targets thirty years away, overseen by a climate commission with no powers to enforce the targets. This is not an approach that is consistent with the urgency of the climate emergency," he said.

"The world now has just a decade to cut carbon emissions in half to avoid climate catastrophe. We're already feeling the effects here in New Zealand, with extreme weather events like the Nelson fires, the recent storms, floods and droughts."