Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ
A major report highlighting the risks of climate change to almost every facet of New Zealand life is a “big wake-up call”, climate researchers say.
One is calling for a war-time approach to climate adaptation, saying partisanship must be removed from crucial decisions about costs.
The Climate Change Commission’s national risk assessment, released on Thursday, highlighted what it said were the 10 biggest climate-related risks for the country.
Threats to buildings, road and rail, and the country’s “degraded” water infrastructure were all on the list, but it also included social and community wellbeing, emergency management, funding and decision-making.
There were “extreme” shortfalls in policy for many of the risks, and too much money was being spent reacting to events instead of building resilience, the commission said.
Earth Sciences New Zealand principal climate scientist Nick Cradock-Henry said since the previous risk assessment was published in 2020, the urgency of the climate risk was now clear.
“The speed and scale, the speed of onset of these risks, is increasing almost in real time,” he said.
“We’re having extreme weather events from once every few years to almost monthly – that is a dramatic acceleration in just a few years.”
Risks that had previously been hypothetical, like insurance retreat, were now a reality in some places, Cradock-Henry said.
“We are seeing already then in the absence of a comprehensive strategy to deal with climate change, insurers are waking up to the fact that there’s no plan.
“There is increasing exposure and there is an unwillingness in the part of insurers to bear the costs of that.”
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts. SAMUEL RILLSTONE / RNZ
Responding to the report’s release, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said adaptation to climate change was “a key priority” for the government.
“That’s why last year we released a National Adaptation Framework and are progressing a range of work across the planning system, emergency management, and local government to give us an enduring system that prepares New Zealand for the impacts of climate change, while keeping costs to our society as low as possible,” he said.
The commission’s report would help the government to “better understand the urgency and severity of climate risks so we can sequence and prioritise action”.
Cradock-Henry said the government’s framework was “skeletal” and local councils needed much more clarity and support.
“They are on the front lines of managing this and they are under-resourced and are in many ways essentially flying blind,” he said.
“We need a Climate Adaptation Bill.”
University of Canterbury political science professor Bronwyn Hayward said the report had been released at the “worst time politically”.
“We’re going into a highly partisan election, we’ve got a rushed ultimatum to local government for restructuring, we’re restructuring the key agencies that are responsible for delivering responses to risk, particularly the Ministry for the Environment, and all of this almost chaotic change is really putting at risk our ability to move thoughtfully, inclusively, and transparently in not just planning, but actually implementing action.”
Politicking needed to be put aside so that lasting decisions could be made about how to share the costs of adaptation.
“We’ve seen it occasionally at times of great crisis,” she said.
“In World War II, we actually had ministers that were appointed from the opposition as well as from government. During Covid, we had a select committee that was led by the opposition.”
In the meantime, there was no “coherent plan”.
“We’re leaving individuals to respond to risk and to inform themselves, and we’re dealing with events as if they are one-off emergencies each time that we face them.”
Climate Prescience director and researcher Nathaneal Melia said from a scientific perspective, the report was “a big wake-up call” but likely still underplayed the risks.
It should be treating the massive costs to the economy and society from the North Island weather events in 2023 as the current “best worst-case scenario”.
“Come, say, 10 years’ time, you’re going to get another event like that, that’s going to be worse. And then the one 10 years day the line is going to be worse than that,” he said.
“So, are our systems robust enough to cope with these ‘black swan’ events that are coming?”
The government now has two years to respond to the risk report with a new adaptation plan.
Climate Change minister Simon Watts has previously said that no decisions about cost-sharing will be made until the next term of government.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand