The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the world's official body for assessment of climate change, and just this week they released their Synthesis Report. It essentially concludes that the environment is in serious trouble if we are to continue on the current path, but it’s still not too late for Aotearoa and the world.
The 2023 report is a summary of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, reflecting seven years of in-depth assessments on various topics. It draws out the key insights from six previous reports, written by hundreds of expert authors. These reports spanned many thousands of pages and were informed by hundreds of thousands of comments by governments and the scientific community.
The synthesis report confirms “humans are unequivocally increasing greenhouse gas emissions to record levels. Global temperatures are now 1.1C above pre-industrial levels. They're likely to reach 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in the early 2030s”.
Stuff this week reported further comments on the report from University of Canterbury researcher Bronwyn Hayward, one of the authors of the report; “It was significant that government delegates agreed to strong wording saying that the world needs strong action this decade” she said.
The interesting point for countries like New Zealand who rely heavily on primary production is that the latest report has a much greater emphasis than before on the reduction of methane; “To have a chance of staying inside 1.5C-2C, action is needed on both carbon dioxide and methane”. Hayward said this point was “discussed intensely because of greater focus on methane in the summary compared with previous reports”.
“We cannot ensure that we can protect communities and our livelihoods once our temperatures start rising over 1.5C,” she added. “The actions we take now will affect current and future generations – but for thousands of years.”
This summer we’ve seen first-hand the reality of climate change and it’s worsening impact. “We struggle, as scientists, to get the language right on how serious this is” Hayward told Stuff. By law, Aotearoa needs to achieve net-zero by 2050 and after this point, the country will need to absorb more emissions than are created.
A positive point to come out of the report is that it’s never been cheaper to switch to green energy. Citing that in many cases, new renewable energy is even cheaper than maintaining old fossil-fuelled power stations. Last week we ran a story about some of the renewable energy projects happening in New Zealand. This is an important opportunity for change.
The Institute’s recent submission on the Spatial Planning and Natural and Built Environment Bills stressed the need to bring forward the work programme to release the Climate Adaptation Bill so that these intertwined areas of legislation can work together and finally we can complete the set.
NZPI’s submission states that the CAA will be an essential part of how we plan for our future:
“NZPI anticipates that the Climate Adaptation Act will need to address the circumstances and consequences of changes to existing activities for the purposes of responding to natural hazard and climate change risk. This is a prime example of why it would be efficient and extremely helpful for the Climate Adaptation Act to be considered alongside the NBE Bill and SP Bill”.
