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Climate Change & Nature Aotearoa New Zealand

Protect.  Restore.  Adapt.

Climate Change & Nature Aotearoa New Zealand

Protect. Restore. Adapt.

Global maps showing 15 consecutive months of record global heat from June 2023 through August 2024.
Global maps of record global heat June 2023 – August 2024. Each month of record global temperatures, compared to the 1991-2020 average, is shown in sequence.  Image:  NOAA Climate.gov, based on data from NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information.

 

  Average global temps. June 2023 – August 2024: > 1.5°C above pre-industrial average*

*Average temperature 1850-1900 (pre-industrial):13.84°C

Forty countries including Aotearoa have declared a climate emergency. In 2023, the COP host country, United Arab Emirates, used climate talks to make oil and gas deals with multiple countries. The President of COP28 continues with his oil company’s record investment in oil and gas production. The President of COP29 (this year) is another oil executive.

In 2021, the UN launched the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration because nature-based solutions must triple by 2030 to counter the dual climate and environmental crises.

In 2024 the New Zealand Government gave itself the power to exempt parts of the country from any or all of the Resource Management Act requirements, enabling the destruction of biodiversity and pollution of rivers and coasts. It also scrapped every positive action to reduce emissions, ignoring both the MfE ‘Our atmosphere and climate’ report and the Climate Change Commission’s latest report. It plans to open up conservation lands to mining and the ocean to drilling for oil and gas.

This puts us on a catastrophic path to the future, turning Aotearoa into a ‘pariah state’.


To help us understand and respond to these emergencies this website is in 3 sections:

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“The time is now, Ināia tonu nei, to lead the change we want to see and to remain steadfast to the values that underpin our nationhood—values like whanaungatanga kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga.” – Climate Change Commission

What we’re doing to restore our native ecosystems, te manu o te taiao, and tackle climate change. Every project, big and small, includes resources to help you become climate resilient:

Explainers

With a focus on Canterbury, this site includes resources relevant to all of Aotearoa.
 

Instructions for interactive graphs (Credit: The 2°Institute.)

  • Mouse over anywhere on the graphs to see the changes over the last thousand years.
  • To see time periods of your choice, hold your mouse button down on one section then drag the mouse across a few years, then release it.
  • To see how this compares to the past 800,000 years, click on the ‘time’ icon on the top left.
  • To return the graphs to their original position, double-click the time icon.
  • The annual ups and downs in the graph are because plants accumulate carbon in the spring and summer and release some back to the air in autumn and winter. As the northern hemisphere has more land and more plants, carbon dioxide levels go up in winter because plants become less productive. Annual measurements of carbon dioxide are an average of these ups and downs.
Instructions for interactive graphs (Credit: The 2°Institute.)

  • Mouse over anywhere on the graphs to see the changes over the last thousand years.
  • To see time periods of your choice, hold your mouse button down on one section then drag the mouse across a few years, then release it.
  • To see how this compares to the past 800,000 years, click on the ‘time’ icon on the top left.
  • To return the graphs to their original position, double-click the time icon.
  • The annual ups and downs in the graph are because plants accumulate carbon in the spring and summer and release some back to the air in autumn and winter. As the northern hemisphere has more land and more plants, carbon dioxide levels go up in winter because plants become less productive. Annual measurements of carbon dioxide are an average of these ups and downs.