Native ecosystems would become more vulnerable to invasion by exotic species and there would be an increased risk to human health from subtropical diseases and ultraviolet radiation.
The Government minister in charge of climate change policy, Pete Hodgson, said there was little question that in the long run New Zealand’s economy and human welfare would be under substantial threat if the country did not respond to the issue.
"We now have a comprehensive impacts report setting out the likely consequences of doing nothing. If we fail to act our children will live to regret it."
Mr Hodgson said our knowledge about climate change impacts was still patchy and uncertain, but that did not mean New Zealand could be complacent and continually defer action.
"New Zealand needs a long-term adaptation strategy and we must also continue to play our part in international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the report showed temperatures would rise by up to 3.8 degrees in the next century if nothing was done to reduce emissions, and by up to 2.6 degrees if constructive steps were taken.
Mr Hodgson said contrary to a radio news report this morning, New Zealand is staying the course on the Kyoto Protocol.
The protocol, signed in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997, committed developed nations to cutting emissions of the main so-called greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide by an average of 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.
Mr Hodgson confirmed this afternoon New Zealand would ratify the protocol next year.
"That has always been based on the expectation that international negotiations would have resolved the rules well before then," he said.
"New Zealand can't ratify a protocol that is not ratifiable, which is a statement of the obvious I have repeated many times. It is not a statement that signifies any change in New Zealand's position," he said.
The United States withdrew from the Kyoto treaty in March saying it was economically harmful to the United States and fatally flawed for not including developing nations like China.
Australia followed the US out of the treaty last week saying it would not ratify the treaty as there was little point in a treaty that did not include the US – the world’s top carbon dioxide producer.
The New Zealand report comes as the United Nations releases information claiming global warming is happening now, threatening the Earth with disaster.
The 2,000-page report on the science and potential impacts of climate change gave the most authoritative statement yet that the Earth is warming rapidly, that the main cause is industrial pollution, and that the consequences for human society are likely to be catastrophic.
The report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of several hundred of the world's most distinguished meteorologists, including many Americans, is a substantial slap in the face for US President George Bush, whose unilateral abrogation of Kyoto has thrown the international effort to counter global warming into chaos.
It comes on the eve of first big meeting, held in Bonn next week, to try to repair the treaty.
The president cited doubts about the science of climate change as the reason why he would not impose on the American economy the cuts in industrial gases which Kyoto requires – and which the US signed up to at the original treaty agreement in 1997.
But yesterday the IPCC scientists gave their unqualified support to the view that global warming is real. Furthermore, they said, since their last report was published six years ago, they found they had vastly underestimated the rate at which global temperatures are rising.
They now believe they will rise by as much as 5.8 degrees by the end of this century, almost twice the increase predicted in their 1995 report.
This is likely to lead to crop failures, water shortages, increased disease and disasters for towns and cities from flooding, landslides and sea storm surges, they believe, with the poor developing countries likely to be hit hardest.
The crucial point that emerges from the report is that all these new stresses may be happening at the same time to a world already under great stain from massive population growth, poverty and pollution.
- HERALD ONLINE STAFF,
INDEPENDENT
Climate change impacts on New Zealand - executive summary
www.nzherald.co.nz/climate
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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Summary: Climate Change 2001
United Nations Environment Program
World Meteorological Organisation
Framework Convention on Climate Change
