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| Recent flooding: West Coast bridge collapse |
The first major assessment of its kind in seven years from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found the globe’s ocean, land and air temperatures are rising, and the human influence is “unequivocal”. New Zealand land areas have warmed by 1.1C between 1910 and 2020. We are now a country divided by climate extremes. As global temperatures continue to rise, rain will batter the west and south leading to floods, while high temperatures will bring drought and fires to the east and north.
Droughts will impact on horticulture, viticulture, arable cropping and livestock affecting production, quality and yield.” Cities will also be hotspots with localised heat and flooding more intense than global averages.
We have 15,000km of coastline. As sea levels rise tens of thousands of houses are in danger of more frequent and extreme flooding and erosion, exposing $14bn worth of local government infrastructure to damage.
Decreases in glacier ice and seasonal snow will also impact our water resources, hydropower and tourism, and increases in ocean warming, which in turn will affect resources like seafood. The top 700m of the ocean has warmed since the 1970s, with human activity the main driver. The report has been described as scary and sobering.
The report predicts that the ability of forests and other green spaces to absorb carbon dioxide will be weakened with extreme temperatures and droughts. This is particularly significant for us because our forests and land use offsets roughly a third of our total greenhouse gas emissions. We need re-think how changes in climate impact our forests and their ability to absorb and store carbon.
Some have argued that our share of global greenhouse gas emissions is small but our gross emissions per person are among the world’s worst performers on emission increases. Our emissions rose by 57% between 1990 and 2018 – the second greatest increase of all industrialised countries — and a further 2% in 2018-19.
In 2019, New Zealand passed multipartisan climate legislation setting a net-zero-by-2050 target for CO2 emissions and set up the Climate Change Commission to map out a pathway there. The government is legally bound to formulate a policy response to the commission’s report, which was released in June – but has not outlined what those policy steps will be.
The report is a stark reminder of the urgent need for adaptation: strategic and even radical adjustments to practices, processes, capital and infrastructure in response to climate change, which must begin now.
Greenpeace has called upon the government to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint from agriculture, New Zealand’s biggest climate polluter.
Responding to the report, the Minister for the Environment and Green Party co-leader James Shaw, said every sector of the economy, community and government must act to avert the climate crisis.
“We must use this chance to review progress and make sure the actions we are committing to will cut emissions in line with what the latest science requires,” he said. “Anything less will not be enough.”
Amen. -- ACW
Related, but dated before the IPCC report was released
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/jacinda-ardern-climate-crisis-life-or-death-landmark-report-new-zealand-electric-cars-farms
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