Climate change is increasing the risks of extreme heat, floods and bushfires, meaning more people are having to consider moving home. But different people come to different decisions.
Voters in the region have long been seen as caring more about their finances than green issues. But living through extreme heat, rain and floods has them focused on living with climate change.
New Zealand can expect more days above 25°C, the threshold for heat stress in livestock, and fewer frost days, which will affect crops like kiwifruit that need winter chilling.
Judy Lawrence, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Alistair Woodward, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Anita Wreford, Lincoln University, New Zealand, and Mark John Costello, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
As the impacts and costs of climate change increase over time, New Zealand’s financial systems could become less stable and the government less able to support those affected.
Catherine Iorns, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand is replacing its once groundbreaking environmental legislation with new laws, one of which focuses on climate change adaptation and will include a fund to enable managed retreat.
Climate change has long been dismissed as a significant stress to New Zealand’s native wildlife, but research shows it exacerbates existing threats such as introduced predators and habitat loss.
Andrew Lorrey, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research; Ben Noll, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and Lauren Vargo, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Auckland’s extreme drought and the rapid retreat of glaciers in the Southern Alps both highlight how important long-term observations are for water management policy and planning.
The summit was supposed to get global climate action back on track. But despite a few bright spots, the urgent action needed to avoid a climate catastrophe looks a long way off.
Climate change has got to the point that communities around the world are having to contemplate moving. It’s never an easy process, but good planning improves the prospects of successful relocation.
The Democratic candidates hoping to replace Trump in 2020 debated a host of critical issues but never brought up the equally important challenge of Americans’ food security.
The usual way we calculate the economic damage of natural disasters underestimates their true toll – which is key to understanding the costs of climate change.
Jim Salinger, University of Tasmania and James Renwick, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Analysis of last summer’s heatwave shows it killed farmed salmon and decimated kelp forests, as well as shifting grape harvests and fish spawning times forward by several weeks.