Alaska's melting ice signals rising challenge across globe

Thousands of walruses hauling out on a remote barrier island in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska.

Walruses were hitting the beaches of Alaska in record numbers because of a lack of ice in their normal range in the same week that the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was released.

Also in the past two weeks, it was reported that for the first time a cargo ship, ironically carrying coal, has been able to pass through the Northwest Passage from Canada to Finland because there's no ice.

What does this mean for us in Wanganui? How does it impact on us? I'm sure there are plenty of junior naturalists out there who, like me as a child, are fascinated by walruses, polar bears and others that depend on Earth's icy poles for their survival. But are our connections to these sheets of ice more than David Attenborough documentaries and Diego the Animal Rescuer?

One of the greatest impacts of the accelerating increase in temperature - nearly a degree since 1880 with half of that since 1950 - is that oceans warm up. This means our sea levels are rising due to ice melting, whether it's in the Arctic or our glaciers closer to home, and becoming more acidic as they absorb carbon dioxide.

We're an island nation - we have Pacific neighbours living on coral atolls who are literally losing their ancestral lands and becoming climate refugees. A little closer to home, we have Anzac Pde neighbours and Heads Rd businesses vulnerable to increased flooding.

It may seem a stretch to talk about the role of our councils in reducing the impact of climate change, but this is a challenge in which we all have a part to play. When I worked for AECOM in Western Australia, I was on the first team to assess how the design, construction and maintenance of roads and bridges may be impacted by increased floods, higher sea levels, more intense storms and warmer temperatures.

The latest IPCC report clearly states that while climate has varied through the millennia, the dominant cause of climate change today is humans and the accelerated burning of fossil fuels. We can't afford to use up all the coal, oil and gas potentially available to us because our atmosphere can't handle the carbon emissions that result. And if it sounds too dramatic to think about our survival as a species, think instead about the impacts on our quality of life. Climate change impacts agriculture and health as much as sea level and temperature - where we grow food, competition for fresh water, the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, our coastal settlements.

So what can you and I do about it? I still drive in my car, use my iPhone, watch TV, and dream of a holiday to one of those Pacific islands before they go under. How can we make a difference when it seems we're trying to turn a planet-sized Titanic away from one of the remaining icebergs?

In New Zealand we are lucky - we already have a high proportion of renewable energy due to our wind farms and hydro-power stations. But at a political level we're no longer seen as a global leader. We have backed down from commitments to the Kyoto Protocol and weakened our Emissions Trading Scheme while our carbon emissions per capita are one of the highest for a developed country. We are not pulling our weight.

We can't simply turn off our reliance on fossil fuels, but we can move towards a low-carbon economy - introduce a carbon price to incentivise alternatives, make public transport, bicycling and walking easier, lift efficiency standards for energy and fuel and even increase possum control to keep our native forests healthy as a carbon sink. We need to turn the wheel.

Nicola Young works for global consultancy AECOM, is a former Department of Conservation manager and a columnist for the Chronicle. She was educated at Wanganui Girls' College, has a science degree from Massey University and is the mum of two young boys.