Parliamentary select committee appearance on community adaptation to climate change
July 21, 2024•265 words
Early this week, Tuesday 20 July, my colleague, neighbour and friend Conor Twyford and I spoke to the New Zealand parliament Finance and Expenditure Select Committee in support of the Pukerua Bay Climate Action Group's submission on community-led climate adaptation submission.
2023 written submission (very comprehensive)
From listening to other groups presenting before and after us, the select committee was getting similar messages about communities being an integral part of any changes.
Our recommendation (our July 2024 oral submission) was for councils changing their rules to open up land for new housing under the government's policies (such as the National Policy Statement — Urban Development, i.e. NPS–UD) to include a specific statement about anticipating and taking appropriate steps to prevent negative impacts of climate change in their district plan variations.
The statement we managed to get included in the introductory principles in a new District Plan for new developments on the edge of our village was, "The development will incorporate design principles that anticipate the effects of climate change, to mitigate its impacts, to avoid contributing to it and to increase community resilience." (Our exact wording — felt pretty pleased about that.) It was less than we asked for — ours had more detail — but at least this statement means that Porirua City Council and developers have to discuss climate change and come to some agreement as to whether the designs are taking sufficient account of the anticipated future effects of climate change at consenting stage.
We aren't aware of other councils including climate change in their district plan reviews, but they should.