Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says a Notice of Motion to move that Parliament's Finance and Expenditure Committee conduct an inquiry on climate adaptation has been agreed with cross party support.
"The Notice of Motion will empower the Finance and Expenditure Committee to conduct an inquiry into climate adaptation. The purpose of the inquiry is to develop and recommend guiding objectives and principles for the design of a climate adaptation framework for New Zealand," Watts says.
“The adaptation framework will set out the Government’s approach to sharing the costs of preparing New Zealand for the impacts of climate change. Any legislation required to support the framework is expected to be introduced in early 2025," says Watts.
His press release is below.
Climate change – mitigating the risks and costs
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says.
“An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate continues to change,” Mr Watts says.
A Notice of Motion to move the Finance and Expenditure Committee to conduct an inquiry on climate adaptation has been agreed with support from political parties across the House.
“Here in New Zealand, we are feeling the impacts of climate change and we are seeing more frequent and severe damaging natural events such as flooding, storms and landslips,” Mr Watts says.
“Natural disasters are costly, and we need to take steps to safeguard against loss and ensure the things we value most – our communities, jobs, industries and homes – are prepared to withstand the impacts of climate change.”
The Notice of Motion will empower the Finance and Expenditure Committee to conduct an inquiry into climate adaptation. The purpose of the inquiry is to develop and recommend guiding objectives and principles for the design of a climate adaptation framework for New Zealand.
“The adaptation framework will set out the Government’s approach to sharing the costs of preparing New Zealand for the impacts of climate change.
“It will help communities and businesses understand what investment is planned in their area, for example whether the council will build flood protection infrastructure, and what support will be available to help with recovery from events like slips or floods. It will also seek to improve the way we share information, so everyone can make informed decisions about how they manage risks.
“The framework will guide decisions before a severe weather event happens, and responses afterwards, meaning we won’t have to start from scratch every time.
“To find solutions which will be long lasting, we need broad agreement. That’s why I am delighted to have support from across the House for this Motion, and a commitment to work together on this issue.”
The approximately 150 public submissions made to the Environment Committee’s previous inquiry into climate adaptation will be considered in the new inquiry.
As part of the inquiry, the Finance and Expenditure Committee is likely to call for further public submissions.
Any legislation required to support the framework is expected to be introduced in early 2025.
Here's a statement from the Green Party.
Greens welcome cross-party approach to climate adaptation
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry.
“Just over a year ago our North Island was hammered by deadly and devastating climate-change charge weather events. Many are still grappling with the clean-up, insurance issues and infrastructure gaps. These are the consequences of a warming planet and we must do everything we can to both mitigate climate changing emissions and adapt. Good policy does both,” says Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.
“We are ready and willing to work with all political parties interested in making this happen. We commend Minister Watts for picking up the mantle from Hon. James Shaw to progress critical climate adaptation work in a cross-party manner.
“We encourage everyone and their communities, hapū and iwi to get involved with the Inquiry to have their say.
“Let’s get on with this critical work for people and planet,” says Chlöe Swarbrick.
A Notice of Motion in Parliament to empower the Finance and Expenditure Committee to conduct an inquiry on climate adaptation has been agreed on by all parties. The inquiry’s purpose is to develop and recommend objectives and principles for the design of a climate adaptation framework for New Zealand.
And one from the Labour Party.
Support for climate adaptation inquiry
Labour supports a Notice of Motion in the House today to move the Finance and Expenditure Committee to conduct an inquiry on climate adaptation.
The purpose of the inquiry is to develop and recommend objectives and principles for the design of a climate adaptation framework for New Zealand.
“It is imperative we build enduring and long-lasting policies that outlast any one government,” said Labour climate spokesperson Megan Woods.
“To do that we have to work across the House. We’ve done it before and can do it again.
“Climate impacts will affect everyone. Climate change and the wild and weird weather it brings know no partisan politics. So it makes sense to support work on adaptation across the House.
“New Zealand and New Zealanders will need to be resilient to the effects of climate change. We’ve already seen how devastating Cyclone Gabrielle was to communities who lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods.
“I welcome the conversation on climate change adaptation and look forward to cross-party work on this important issue.”
14 Comments
If it's all just "alarmism", can you explain why exxon's models came to the same conclusions as most others?
Are exxon climate change alarmists too?!
One needs to read a lot more about Exxons climate alarmism than the article in the link. It was no such thing at the time.
" "Exxon doesn’t ‘know’ anything. It’s a collection of people and just like any other organization with many people, there are many views and understandings on almost every topic imaginable. I worked with Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, and Libertarians.” – Glen Lyons, former employee (below)"
climate alarmists will have an apoplectic fit from this website
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/09/18/exxonknew-more-correction/
Regardless of what you may think about climate change we do need a better system of civil works to ensure adequate drainage, e.g. clearing waterways so they are not blocked and flooding streets instead. We need to repair and maintain flood barriers as we normally would when infrastructure funding was important. We still need adequate civil defense preparedness even if a non climate related emergency happens e.g. earthquakes. We need to ensure we do not overtax our already overstretched and past use by date sewage and storm water systems (that were meant to be replaced 30 years ago) with over development without the adequate infrastructure to cope. We need portable reliable power supplies that can be brought in with enough to keep power running for essential services in cases of massive network damage.
Much of what applies in this initiative is needed in general just to keep the lights on and the water running cleanly to homes & hospitals. It does not matter what you think about climate change, in the case of earthquakes which NZ is highly prone to we need better measures of resilience and supports. Even trying to cope with storms our infrastructure and waterway management has been left to being so bad the floods occurred recently. Much of the flooding issues could have been avoided e.g. minimum forestry management standards, adequate systems designed to cope with hundred year flooding, drainage and waterway improvements. Our councils stopped doing this and even now Auckland still spends more on festivals and fanciful development rather then considering what happens below the ground and around waterways.
In the areas that flooded in Auckland I lived in all of them, some less then a few houses away in many cases from waist & neck deep water. It was always known that council services & AT were cutting maintenance of drainage to spending up large on above ground luxuries to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. It was blindingly obvious to the locals that these cuts would cause issues but when you are prevented from doing the maintenance yourself, no matter how many calls the council still does nothing about blockages, you are powerless to stop the eventual flooding.
So yeah this initiative affects everyone and it does not matter what you think about climate change. NZs infrastructure, policies and funding priorities are causing issues so even the current state is causing massive multi billion dollar damage to NZ communities. Resilience protects us all.
Actually living in those areas and knowing the causes for the flooding being even worse could have been prevented is what made it all the more galling. Much like the massive destruction of slash clogging rivers and streams, breaking bridges and breaking houses. Bringing tons of silt with them. It is clear much needed to be done before and it was not a factor that was dependent on climate change initiatives. It was a failure in basic considerations of water management. More centralization would have been far worse but we did need a stick to beat councils with to show they cannot defund the infrastructure management and approve massive forestry planting without consequences.
"sharing the costs"
One gets the sense from what they've done so far that this might altogether too much just end up being about taking from working Kiwi taxpayers to preserve property wealth. Too many MPs invested.
As was done for welfare handouts to property via Southern Response in Chch, and in Hawkes Bay and Auckland following floods.
What's doubly entitled is the absolute resistance to any mitigation measures while expecting taxpayer handouts for adaptation (see Seymour also jumping straight to adaptation too).
There are some aspects to adaption that are useful, e.g. not encouraging more developments on floodplains and assisting low income areas, including KO housing, to improve housing so less life is at risk should flooding/power cuts etc occur, better prepared civil defense measures etc. It was mere luck and good will in the last floods that kept many people alive. Without a passing fancy to tour the flooded areas (sometimes in boats people had for fishing and sports) many more might have passed and even that activity was at extreme high risk to those doing it without civil defense training. We need our hospitals & in home care e.g. retirement homes to be able to adapt to events (although I think the resilience of the medical system is out of scope in this end and would need billions just to be resilient to current medical needs). Right now it would be scary being dependent on support to leave and have no one come to help those infirm during flooding.
May be useful although currently we do seem to have many moving parts already with lots of parties involved
NZTA, EMNZ, CCC, Infrastructure Commission, EECA etc
If it shifts the focus to adaptation to environmental impacts and away from mitigation of Climate Change that would be positive as the latter is a serious distraction and a bottomless money pit with no return
and people died needlessly (and much destroyed) during Cyclone Gabriel because of infrastructure and systems shortcomings and failures
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