Big Picture: Climate Change<\/a> report, partner Natasha Garvan, a specialist in environmental and resource management law, says it\u2019s clear cash-strapped local governments will have to stump up part of the cost.<\/p>\n\u201cBut whether there\u2019s any broader assistance from the central government for some communities, if there was a situation such as a managed retreat; that\u2019s still very much unanswered at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Climate adaptation is a policy hot button; in July the Government introduced the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, which if enacted would establish a framework requiring territorial authorities to prepare plans for areas facing the highest climate-related natural hazard risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garvan is the co-author of a chapter in Bell Gully\u2019s report focusing on adaptation planning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This looks at loose ends such as how \u2018priority locations\u2019 are identified in regional spatial plans, what adaptation pathways will be chosen and how the substantial costs of adaptation are funded.<\/p>\n
Who is impacted?<\/p>\n
Garvan says those most impacted by adaptation planning will be people living in those areas identified as priority locations \u2013 as this planning will force a conversation around what happens with their property \u2013 and developers that own or are eyeing at-risk land.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another stakeholder category is insurers. The legislation and subsequent pool of data will provide better information about the risk of natural hazards, which will better inform insurers to service customers and calculate premiums.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some strong indicators in what\u2019s called the national policy statement for natural hazards. In that there\u2019s a risk matrix, and we think that that\u2019s likely to be used to identify the priority locations,\u201d Garvan says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat risk matrix then helps you work out if it\u2019s a \u2018very high-risk\u2019 or \u2018high-risk\u2019 area, and that \u00a0will likely translate to the priority locations, provided there is\u00a0good data to inform those decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
What does \u2018high risk\u2019 look like?<\/p>\n
Sites that are most likely to be marked as priority locations include areas impacted by rising sea levels and coastal erosion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garvan says flood zones are another top contender: \u201cIf you\u2019re in an area that repeatedly floods, that\u2019s probably nature\u2019s signal to you that you could be in a priority location.\u201d<\/p>\n
This will sometimes be obvious to people, while in other situations it might not.<\/p>\n
Garvan says: \u201cIf you look at what happened in Auckland and during Cyclone Gabrielle, some homeowners would have felt that it was unexpected that they were suddenly red stickered and they couldn\u2019t go back into their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Difficult decisions<\/p>\n
Climate adaptation plans are likely to rely on four key response categories: avoid, protect, accommodate and retreat. While the first option will be the obvious choice for future development, managing existing risk will likely fall down to the latter three.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no one-size-fits-all option \u2013 the decision will differ based on the level of risk and stakeholders\u2019 appetite for risk, as well as the purpose of a site.<\/p>\n
At Sunset Beach in Port Waikato, locals have refused to accept Waikato District Council\u2019s recommendation to leave due to severe coastal erosion facing the region. Earlier this year, locals funded and erected a $400,000 seawall to hold the coastline in place.<\/p>\n
Addressing decisions around protecting, accommodating and retreating, Garvan says there will be a lot of room for debate and discussion about what options should be taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully those conversations occur alongside and with communities about what they want. Communities might come together and say: \u2018Look, if we get these types of events over this period, or the sea level rises to a certain point\u2019, or: \u2018if we get two major flooding events within a five-year period, we accept that the solution needs to look different\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can have that staggered approach for decision making. What this allows is a more proactive view around managing the risk and having the conversations up front.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garvan won\u2019t be drawn on how conversations around rates capping would play into adaptation planning costs. What is clear, she says, is that under-pressure councils facing new responsibilities and functions will have to prioritise in terms of what they do with the funds available.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The amendment bill doesn\u2019t establish any dedicated central government funding mechanism, cost-sharing arrangement between central and local government or compensation framework for impacted parties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It does however suggest a shared responsibility model at a conceptual level \u2013 even if it doesn\u2019t translate this into any binding obligation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI probably can\u2019t speculate beyond that in terms of what the costs of this process will actually be and what that means for each council,\u201d Garvan says. \u201cI imagine it will be different depending on the council and how many priority locations they\u2019ve got within their region.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New legislation dictating how local councils, developers and businesses plan for climate change does not yet define who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-590081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}