Adaptation
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Adaptation
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“In the aftermath of [these events],
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, August 2024
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:
- being informed about how the climate is changing and what this means for New Zealanders
- being organised, with a common goal, a planned approach, appropriate tools, and clear roles and responsibilities
- 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 but the new coalition Government scrapped climate policies in December 2023. As things stand, developers are pitted against councils faced with potential legal action for declining development. Perversely, these councils will be subject to legal action from affected owners for permitting that development. And they’ll have to fight this litigation using money we pay either directly through rates or indirectly through our rent.
Any new legislation could take years to decades to come into full effect, subject to any change of government scrapping whatever the previous government legislates.
Video 2 : Webinar recording now available: 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.
30 July 2024: See the EDS website for a PDF of the final
Video 3: Webinar recording now available: 2024 emissions reduction monitoring report
This webinar 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.
5 August 2024: 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.
24 June 2024: 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.
08 April 2024: See the webpage and download slides.
Video 6: Impact-based weather warnings are 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? These topics are covered by Dr Richard Turner of NIWA and social scientists Dr Sally Potter and Dr Sara Harrison of GNS Science.
21 April 2024: 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 among people. 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.
Our webinar ‘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.
No reira, ē ngā mana, ē ngā reo, ē ngā mātāwaka, areare taringa mai ki tēnei wānanga ipurangi whakahirahira ō tatou, He pito mata.
20 February 2024: See the webpage and download slides.
Video 9: Deep South Challenge: Changing with our Climate – Adaptation: from infrastructure to insurance
Conrad presents on Infrastructure disruption from 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.
Andrew presents on Adapting to compound flood hazards
This project is addressing 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.
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 and recover.
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
Video 12: Resilience Naional Science Challenge – De-risking Resilience
More information
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In early 2024 the new coalition Government scrapped policies and legislation intended to help us adapt and thrive.
Ministry for the Environment (previous government)
- 25 August 2023: Report of the Expert Working Group on Managed Retreat: A Proposed System for Te Hekenga Rauora/Planned Relocation
- August 2023: Community-led retreat and adaptation funding: Issues and options
- 2018: Adapting to Climate Change in New Zealand; Recommendations from the Climate Change Adaptation Technical Working Group
The Environmental Defence Society (EDS) (2023):
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s Climate Change Adaptation Act: Building A Durable Future Principles And Funding For Managed Retreat Working Paper 1
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s Climate Change Adaptation Act: Building A Durable Future : Current Legislative And Policy Framework For Managed Relocation Working Paper 2
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s Climate Change Adaptation Act: Options And Models For Managed Relocation Policy: Working Paper 3
The Environmental Defence Society (EDS) (2024): (see all papers and submissions to Government)
Deep South Research
- 2023, Curran et al; Decision-Making In Our Uncertain World: Which, When And How, Deep South Stakeholder Report (for planners and policy makers) (PDF)