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Adaptation

2025 Adaptations Futures Conference

Held in Ōtautahi Christchurch in October, several presentations are available online.  If you attended and would like access all recordings but don’t have the password, please contact the organiser.

Image: S. Whitelaw

 Adaptation

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Adaptation

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Climate resilience is the capacity of a community or environment to anticipate & manage climate impacts, minimize their damage & recover & transform as needed after the initial shock.– UNDP, 2024

The world is accelerating towards 3°C+ by 2100 and further warming into the next century. Irreversible tipping points not factored into IPCC modelling are being passed. Due to feedback effects, instead of absorbing greenhouse gases, large parts of what little remains of the natural world are now releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, adding to what we’re emitting. This makes 4°C a credible possibility. 

In the aftermath [of the 2023 Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle], the government developed, once more, an ad-hoc arrangement with councils that seems to incentivize more poorly planned developments and investments in high-risk areas, and a refusal to recognise that the risks are changing because of climate change.  An external expert working group convened by the Ministry for the Environment issued a suggested framework on how to develop a coherent system of planned relocations that will reduce risk, rather than enhance it. Nothing has been done, however, and it seems that when another inevitable disaster will happen, we will again improvise a response that will again fail to deal with the underlying risk from climate change. – Prof. Ilan Noy, Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Victoria University of Wellington, 2024

Climate change risks are significant and rising, and remain insufficiently addressed by adaptation action in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Commission finds limited evidence that the first national adaptation plan is driving adaptation at the scale or pace needed.– Climate Change Commission Progress report: National Adaptation Plan, 2024

2025: The Government released A proposed approach for New Zealand’s adaptation framework then scrapped several policies and legislation, reduced the role of the Climate Change Commission, and intends to dismantle the structure of Regional Councils.

2026: By mid-February, eight severe weather-related states of emergency had been declared, matching the total for all of 2025.

What is Adaptation?

Adaptation is the process of adjusting to the actual or expected changes brought about by climate change.

For people, and the systems people create, this means making changes to try to avoid or minimise the harm or damage from climate change and its effects – or to benefit from opportunities climate change might provide. These could be changes, for example, to laws, policies, practices, processes, as well as to physical structures and the built environment. 

In nature, and within natural systems, adaptation can happen by itself through ecological and evolutionary processes, or with human assistance, by helping those systems adjust to climate change and its effects…

The adaptation process has a number of steps, including understanding climate hazards and risks, identifying and evaluating options, developing and implementing an adaptive planning strategy, and monitoring and reviewing progress and adjusting the plan as necessary.  – Climate Change Commission Progress report: National Adaptation Plan, August 2024

What is Effective Adaptation?

To be effective, adaptation action must enable New Zealand’s communities to reduce the risks from climate change impacts today, and over the medium and long term by:

  • reducing the exposure and vulnerability of our social and cultural systems, natural and built environment (including physical assets), and economy
  • maintaining and improving the capacity of our social, cultural, environmental, physical and economic systems to adapt

We identified three characteristics that need to be in place for effective adaptation to be implemented in New Zealand:

    1. being informed about how the climate is changing and what this means for New Zealanders
    2. being organised, with a common goal, a planned approach, appropriate tools, and clear roles and responsibilities
    3. taking dynamic action to proactively reduce exposure and vulnerability to the social, cultural, environmental and economic consequences of climate change. – MfE Adapting to Climate Change in New Zealand, 2018

To mitigate these rapidly compounding impacts, we need to redouble our efforts to stop emissions while simultaneously deploying adaptation strategies to accommodate wilder weather and rising sea levels that are now unavoidable and irreversible on human time scales. And we need to do so quickly. In many instances, protecting and restoring native ecosystems (nature-based solutions) helps both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Adaptation also requires developing and implementing tools that help communities cope with inevitable and unavoidable non-economic as well as economic losses, while avoiding bad decisions that result in costly and potentially deadly maladaptation.

A Local Government New Zealand report found that process of engaging with communities at risk to help make the best—albeit unpalatable—choices are hindered by a lack of resources, vague policies, and ill-defined laws. These outdated laws were due to be replaced by the proposed Managed Retreat and Climate Change Act.


Selected webinars from the National Science Challenges 

Video 2 : Webinar recording 2024 Climate Adaptation Act: Building a Durable Future 

Final report of Phase 1 of EDS’s Climate Change Adaptation Act: Building a Durable Future project. The report combines the lessons from three previous working papers and sets out concrete recommendations for the design of new legislation for climate adaptation. The report suggests a workable and pragmatic way forward. It addresses the important issues of funding, property rights, managed relocation and fairness and draws on national and international case studies.

See the EDS website for a PDF

Video 3: Webinar recording 2024 emissions reduction monitoring report

Shares information about the Climate Change Commission’s first annual emissions reduction monitoring report, released in July 2024.This report provides an evidence-based, impartial view of whether the country is on course to reach its goals of reducing and removing greenhouse gas emissions. It provides insight into the progress made, challenges experienced, and opportunities and risks that need to be considered.

See the Climate Commission website.

Video 4: Reducing future extreme weather impact Aotearoa New Zealand

Researchers from the Extreme Weather Research Platform (EWRP) present their key findings. Featuring presenters from a range of EWRP projects, this webinar provides a detailed overview of key outcomes and data outputs from MBIE funding across the EWRP. Topics include landslide mapping, the Emergency Event Data Catalogue, strategies for supporting critical infrastructure recovery, ecological impacts, the effects of extreme weather on rangatahi and whānau wellbeing, LiDAR, remote sensing, flood mapping, and risk modelling.

See the webpage for all research projects.

Video 5: Smart Resilient Communities

Technology is increasingly transforming the cities and communities that we live in, and the way we live in them. Researchers from EWRP provided a detailed overview of key outcomes and data outputs across the EWRP. Topics included landslide mapping, the Emergency Event Data Catalogue, strategies for supporting critical infrastructure recovery, ecological impacts, the effects of extreme weather on rangatahi and whānau wellbeing, LiDAR, remote sensing, flood mapping, and risk modelling, and present their key findings.

See the webpage and download slides.

Video 6: Impact-based weather warnings

A new type of warning system that communicates what the weather will DO (e.g. disrupt traffic, take out power) along with what the weather will BE (e.g. wind speed, rainfall intensity). They can add meaning to the warnings and enable the public to make appropriate decisions to protect themselves. Where is the data needed to produce impact-based warnings? What are the challenges and benefits, and how effective are they at prompting the public to take action?

See the webpage and download slides.

Video 7: Food systems security and resilience

Events like the Kaikōura earthquake, Covid-19 and Cyclone Gabrielle exposed our food system’s vulnerability to shocks, its dependence on our whenua, and how disasters can exacerbate existing inequalities amongpeople. By disrupting food production and distribution systems, such events result in food shortages that can affect not only communities immediately impacted by disasters, but potentially the entire country. Directors of seven National Science Challenges, including Resilience to Nature’s Challenges, have called for a National Food Strategy to guide food-related policy decisions and actions, including those around food system vulnerabilities and inequities.

‘He pito mata’ brings together experts on food security, food resilience and indigenous food sovereignty, to explore how we might build a food system that can ensure our nation has enough food to feed our people, both pre- and post-disasters.

See the webpage and download slides.

Video 8: Adaptation to natural hazards

Essential for our communities and infrastructure facing the recurringeffects of disruptive natural hazards. When it comes to mitigating these impacts, decision-makers have to navigate considerable institutional, professional, and political risks. In May 2024, the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges symposium Te Tai Whanake – Growing a stronger, more resilient Aotearoa started to address questions like:

  • What does adaptation look like in different contexts?
  • How sure are we?
  • How much will it cost, and who pays?
  • What should we prioritise?
  • What arrangements or capability would improve a whole-of-nation
    approach to assessing and managing our significant natural hazard risks?
  • How can the latest research findings and tools support communities
    and government through the complexity of adaptation decisions?

Some panelists made themselves available for a Q&A so we could continue these important discussions and answer live questions from attendees.  See the webpage and download slides.

 Video 9: Deep South Challenge: Changing with our Climate  Adaptation from infrastructure to insurance

Coastal flooding: with rising sea levels New Zealand’s infrastructure becomes more exposed to coastal flooding. This research focuses not only on where, but also how future coastal flooding may disrupt national infrastructure. Coastal flooding may cause short-term disruption, such as temporary flooding of a railway line, or more significant damage that requires repairs, such as washed out bridges. Understanding these relationships between flood depths and resulting damage to infrastructure are a vital component of the modelling drawing on evidence from historic floods both local and globally. The team will produce an improved national dataset of extreme coastal flooding.

Compounding flood hazards: on water infrastructure due to climate change. The research is investigating how flood hazards from rivers, sea-level rise and groundwater will combine either as extreme events (shocks), or as slowly emerging and increasingly persistent impacts. Working with researchers from TU Delft in the Netherlands, the team is testing Robust Decision Making (RDM) tools within a Dynamic Adaptive Pathways Planning (DAPP) process.

Insurance pricing: The property insurance market faces multiple stressors from increasing hazards, including floods, sea level rise and landslips. Concerns are emerging about the long-term viability of coastal insurance. It’s increasingly understood that insurers will turn to risk-based pricing to maintain coverage. On the one hand, this does encourage adaptation and better aligns payment with those who bear the risk. On the one hand, this does encourage adaptation and better aligns payment with those who bear the risk. On the other hand, risk-based pricing raises concerns about equity, affordability and under-insurance, which are likely to get worse in flood-prone areas.

Video 10:  He kai kei aku ringa – Disaster preparedness

This whakatauki translates to ‘there is food at the end of my hands’ and speaks to resilience, empowerment, and hope. The whakatauki refers to one’s ability to have, and use the necessary skills, knowledge, and resources to be resilient and thrive.

The purpose of this webinar is to present whānau and communities with tangible and practical knowledge so they can determine for themselves how best to prepare, respond andrecover.

Captain Ernesto Ojeda of the indigenous Tarahumara and Yaqui Nations has over 50 years experience in disaster preparedness and response.

Video 11:  Deep South Challenge: Changing with our Climate – Impacts of a changing climate on short term and long term energy planning

Findings from the Deep South Challenge research into climate change impacts on NZ electricity.

Video 12: Resilience National Science Challenge; De-risking Resilience

Decision-making for resilience requires innovation. We need to tackle ingrained challenges and ‘path dependencies’ where previous decisions may limit our options to address future problems. To make progress on issues such as planned retreat and climate adaptation we need a greater understanding of how research can support policy and decision-making for systematic change and transformation.

Resilience to Nature’s Challenge’s ‘De-risking Resilience’ programme included a cluster of research projects focused on understanding real-world decision-making difficulties, while also testing strategies to ‘de-risk’ putting resilience science into practice and outcomes. Our team share findings from two key streams of research: understanding policy making for systemic change and transformation, and trialing safe innovation spaces for resilience decision-making at the science-policy interface.

Topics include crisis policy-making during the Covid-19 recovery, the cross-sector politics of climate adaptation, the role of policy experimentation in the evolution of managed retreats, and insights from trialing safe innovative spaces for decision-making.

More information