Aerial footage shows the severity of the damage caused by flooding in Auckland.
Video / Pool
Opinion by James Shaw
OPINION:
Lives in Auckland have been upended by this week’s flooding. The images of torrents rushing through streets and into peoples’ homes were frightening. There will be people, I’m sure, who will feel like they are pouring all of their energy into just getting by.
The devastation for many will still be unfolding. Others will be dealing with the trauma of having lost everything. Family homes people have poured their hearts and souls into, lost. Precious family photos, sodden, barely recognisable. Old school books, letters, the kids’ drawings, in pieces.
Some will be forced, in a way, to live life in reverse, building back what they had. That so many people and community organisations have come together to support each other over the past week, when so much else has been lost, is remarkable - and shows just what we value most of all. Each other.
There is no doubt Auckland experienced a climate disaster.
Climate change is, most of the time, a seemingly slow-moving and scientific issue that, on a day-to-day basis, people don’t experience and don’t really see. Until they do. Super-powered by a fossil fuel industry whose political power has engineered the atmospheric conditions that supercharged Tāmaki Makaurau’s state of emergency.
Temperatures today are 1.1 degrees warmer than they were 150 years ago. Warmer air holds more water vapour, which in turn creates more extreme rain events. One degree of warming translates to about a 20 per cent increase in rainfall per hour during an extreme weather event. Under business as usual, the planet could warm by 2.6C by the end of the century. Those trajectories will depend on what we do now.
Writing this, I know the language of 1.5-2C of global warming - so familiar in political circles and policy discussion - doesn’t even begin to describe the future that awaits us if we do not act. I also know that the fractions of a degree matter. A 1.6C world is less bad than a 1.7C world. We must not find out what 2C of warming looks like.
Aerial view of Stanley Point, Auckland, after a record deluge of rain which caused major flooding across the region. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The Auckland flood is not a one-off. Climate change defines the reality we live in today. Nelson, Northland, the East Coast and the West Coast have all seen the immediacy of the climate crisis. Extreme weather events have exposed our genuine vulnerability and it is playing out exactly as scientists warned.
When public attention begins to shift away from the immediate response in our biggest city, we must continue to prioritise the values we all saw on display this past week. The safety net needs to be made much stronger, with everything from an immediate rent freeze to income support to hardship assistance for everyone who needs it.
Over the past few days we have had a glimpse of one possible vision of our climate future: An extraordinary flood event undoubtedly powered by climate change. But there is another vision: One where everyone’s needs are met within the boundaries of a safe global climate. Resilient communities powered by clean energy and home to good-paying, low-carbon jobs. Cities built to be resilient to a changing climate, at the same time as they bring emissions down to zero. It is a vision we can move quickly towards, if we choose to.
For decades, politicians the world over have not just been slow to act to avoid the worst happening. They have also been slow to prepare for the impacts already arriving. While this is something we are beginning to change, it is not happening fast enough.
We have a choice. Allow emissions to rise and accelerate the pace of the planet’s warming, leading to more extreme weather events. Or we can build something better.
There is a saying that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today. Tāmaki Makaurau is a city wide awake to the realities of the climate crisis, and like others around the country, is awaiting tangible answers. Now is the time to provide them.
