Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
- The Climate Change Commission has delivered its first national adaptation plan progress assessment
- The report looks at the effectiveness and implementation of the country's first national adaptation plan
- The report's key finding is that adaptation is not happening on the scale or at the pace that is needed
- The report has nine recommendations
The Climate Change Commission says New Zealand is not adapting to climate change fast enough.
On Thursday, the minister of climate change released the commission's first report assessing the progress of the government's national adaptation plan.
The adaptation plan was first released in 2022, and the commission will provide reports assessing it every two years.
The first report found the plan wanting, and included nine recommendations in total.
Seven of those focused on helping the country shift from a reactive approach to a more proactive one.
The other two focused on improving national adaptation planning and monitoring.
Commission chair Dr Rod Carr said the report showed urgent action was needed to address the impacts of climate change on New Zealanders' lives and livelihoods.
"The current plan is short on measures and short on time frames and lacks some of the focus that we would hope to see in a plan," Carr said.
"Climate change is making severe weather events like those felt across the motu in recent years more frequent and intense.
"We are already seeing a significant toll. In the 2022-2023 financial year, we saw almost $4 billion in insurance claims due to extreme weather events. It's estimated the cost of damage to physical assets from the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle will be up to $14.5 billion."
Carr said there were two big priority areas for urgent action.
The first, he said, was enabling local communities.
"Adapting to a changing climate is different for each individual community - it is an inherently local issue. Central government can provide a way forward by giving communities the tools they need to make their own choices. Supporting councils as they plan and take action with their communities to live with the impacts of climate change is a key issue that needs to be addressed as soon as possible."
The second, he said, was for central government to be clearer about where the costs of climate impact would fall.
"Adaptation happens through the choices people make about where and how they live and do business. Clarifying who funds which parts of adaptation efforts, and making sure the costs and impacts don't fall unfairly, will be critical so that people can make informed decisions.
"We know there are things we can collectively do as a country, that will help. There is opportunity to be had in investing in adaptation now. Investment now will minimise harm and damage to lives and livelihoods from climate change. We know being proactive can provide great returns on investment that last a long time."
The nine recommendations are:
- Enable effective local planning and action
- Provide clarity on how costs will be shared and paid for
- Ensure iwi/Māori can plan and act
- Improve the science and research system
- Work to ensure costs and impacts do not fall unfairly on particular communities and groups
- Prepare a workforce development strategy and plan
- Facilitate sharing of expertise and information
- Make the direction, scale and pace of change required clear
- Make changes to improve the plan's effectiveness and monitoring of it.