Climate change report useful but ‘troubling’: researchers

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A group of climate change and land use researchers in Tairāwhiti is welcoming a new report released today by the Ministry for the Environment assessing atmosphere and climate indicators data recently released by Stats NZ.

“It is really useful to get this detailed assessment of the way the climate is changing and what that means for human life and other species in Aotearoa,” said land use researcher Manu Caddie from Te Weu Charitable Trust.

“We agree with the report that food insecurity, loss of local jobs and uncertainty around extreme weather events are having major impacts on health and wellbeing, including mental health.”

More than 30 local researchers are currently working with Te Weu on climate change, extreme weather and land use projects in Tairāwhiti. The trust was established in 2022 to address regional resilience issues, local climate mitigation efforts and support sustainable land use.

Treasury has estimated the damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland floods may total between $9 billion and $14.5 billion.

“We know the weather events we’ve seen already this year are just scratching the surface of what is to come over the rest of the century. The country is going to really struggle to afford to repair and maintain transport infrastructure in the main centres, let alone the most vulnerable regions with low populations like Tairāwhiti. We have found these are already big concerns for residents.”

The report notes that increases in extreme weather events, such as drought and extreme rainfall, affect agriculture, horticulture, fisheries and forestry — the main industries for Tairāwhiti.

“It is really troubling that the report shows extreme weather events will become more frequent so we will have less time to recover between events,”  Mr Caddie said. “Tairāwhiti is already experiencing this situation with a series of significant weather events over the past three years and many communities are struggling to cope.

“It is disappointing that climate resilience and mitigation plans have been largely invisible in the election campaign. We need to get away from short-term, partisan personality politics and shift the democratic system to ways that will enable long-term issues like action on climate change and biodiversity loss to be taken out of the three-year election cycle.

The report shows how climate change also exacerbates the impacts of other threats including invasive species, erosion and floods, habitat fragmentation, fire risk and pollution. Heat extremes have already driven local extinctions of species, and large die-offs on land and in the ocean. Taonga species are particularly at risk from the rapidly changing climate, but new risks from infectious diseases threaten both animal and human health.

The report predicts climate change will make already vulnerable people even more so, and the impacts are likely to increase inequalities for hundreds of thousands of households already struggling.

“This is unacceptable and we need urgent commitments from all parties that future government policy proposals will be assessed in light of their impact on climate, inequality and biodiversity.

“A really useful feature of the report is information on how much confidence government officials have in each of the predictions around future impacts” said Mr Caddie. “The report is 50 pages, but quite readable. We hope that future reporting will include more details on trends and likely scenarios in each region.”