Rising costs and rising seas: Parliament’s climate adaptation inquiry

The House

The Climate Change Commission told members this week that climate adaptation is the "most difficult challenge this country faces over the next century."

When New Zealand's colonial founders built our cities and towns, they clearly lacked flooding and coastal erosion modelling in their town planning.

It is true that coastal and river-based settlements are inherently desirable in the way of accessibility for trade, fertile soil, and mahinga kai.

Moreover, there probably wasn't a large pool of climate scientists and environmental engineers to consult at the time. But still, our early settlers' addiction to building on flood plains and swamps has made our country's effort to adapt to a changing climate a monumental one.

Listen to Sunday's episode of The House, including the radio version of this story.

Climate change is a pretty ubiquitous topic in Parliament. It's the subject of so many debates and conversations in the House, which tend to get pretty heated at the best of times.

Two decades or so ago, those debates may have contained arguments like "climate change exists and we need to stop it."

That's definitely still the underlying utterance or default position for so many of our MPs, but for a while now, there's been a noticeable shift in dialogue from how we can stop the climate from changing, to how on earth we can adapt to it changing.

Recent extreme weather events like Cyclone Gabrielle, and the Auckland Anniversary floods are jarring reminders that inaction would be chaotic, and adaptation is critical.

Invariably, this is an issue that transcends generations, and indeed governments. Hence the need for bi-partisan collaboration and consensus on lawmaking in this area.

Parliament's Finance and Expenditure Select Committee (FEC) is currently leading the charge on this, with an inquiry into climate adaptation.

This picks up on the Environment Committee's inquiry on the same subject last Parliament (the term finished before the committee had the chance to report back), and is intended to be a key consideration in the development of adaptation legislation.

Accordingly, submissions are being sought from far and wide. Among them are insurance companies, regional councils, advisory bodies, and individual New Zealanders who are experiencing adaptation as an immediate issue rather than a future one. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details