What you need to know about the previously withheld climate report

A report on climate change previously withheld by the National Government was released on Friday. 

It found New Zealand was dragging the chain when it came to adapting to climate change and coastal hazards. 

The report's findings included points that were highly critical, with its authors, the Climate Change Adaptation Technical Advisory Group,  saying there was "no evidence that climate change risks to New Zealand have been reduced by the actions taken by central government".

Climate Change Minister James Shaw said it made for "grim reading".

READ MORE:
* New Zealand climate report is 'grim reading'
* Government lacks 'coordinated plan' for climate change
* NZ needs to act now to protect people and property

Environmental Defence Society chair and executive director Gary Taylor has seen the report. He offers some insight into the situation and why it matters.

WHAT ARE THE POLITICS BEHIND THE DELAYED RELEASE?

"I don't know why it was withheld. It was a good report, so it wasn't withheld because it's bad in terms of being inadequate. And the technical group is a bunch of competent people who understand the issues," Taylor said.

"So it was withheld for some nefarious political reason that's beyond my comprehension."

HOW ARE OTHER COUNTRIES PLANNING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND HOW DO WE COMPARE?

"I think that there are two points here. The first is that New Zealand is uniquely vulnerable to climate change because we're an island nation deep in the Southern Ocean. We've got a 19,000 kilometre-long coastline. A lot of the threats - the new threats - will come from the sea.

"We've also got unique biodiversity. Our forests and plants and birds have developed here over the past 80 million years and are potentially threatened through biosecurity incursions like - I mean kauri dieback and myrtle rust being with contemporary examples which are arguably exacerbated by climate change.

"The second point is that we have been slow to develop a national strategy - well in fact, we still don't have one - for dealing with [climate change] adaptation. As a result there has been very uneven performance around the country by local authorities.

"Dunedin for example, it's got regular coastal inundation of some existing settlements. On the Kapiti Coast we've seen the need for managed retreat from the coast line. (While) in Thames, we've seen the council recently approving some developments in areas that are going to be inundated.

"So it's pretty uneven around the country."

Taylor thought New Zealand was an outlier in terms of taking action on planning for climate change.

"The state of California, for example, which is bigger than we are and is a coastal state has put a lot of effort into developing adaptation plans, partly of course because there is a lot of very expensive real estate at risk.

"In Australia there's quite a bit of effort going into particularly areas like the Queensland coast, where there's a lot of reinforcement of dunes and beach forefronts being invested in."

HOW BIG A TASK IS COMING UP WITH A PLAN?

"Well, it's not a particularly difficult task. It just requires a bunch of experts to sit down and do it.

"It'll need to be done in a collaborative way or a consultative way with local communities, but the key thing is, if we're going to have low-lying communities that are going to be inundated by storm surges in the first instance and potentially sea level rise eventually, we need to know what's going to happen.

"Are they going to be shut down and moved out... or are we going to put up coastal defences to try to protect them, which is done in some countries.

"Then we need to have a clear idea of what the biosecurity threats that are going to come down the line might be because they have to have profound economic consequences."​

WHEN SHOULD WE HAVE STARTED PLANNING?

"The right time probably would have been in the late 1980s when we first came aware of this existential threat that climate change poses to communities."

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IF WE DON'T MAKE A PLAN?

"We'll muddle along. And the effectiveness of the muddling will be uneven around the country. Some communities will be better prepared than others.

"Inevitably I think we are going to see insurance premiums going up for at risk areas, there are going to be some areas that are going to become uninsurable, quite quickly. And unmortgagable in terms of new developments.

"So, there's profound social and economic implications built in around all this.

"A proper strategy would develop a coherent, least cost way forward for New Zealand."

WHAT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE REPORT FOR YOU?

"Finally nailing the fact that we don't have a coherent national strategy."

HAS IT BEEN A WELL KNOW FACT THAT HASN'T BEEN OFFICIALLY RECOGNISED?

"I think that's fair.

"It's been well-known amongst climate change aware people but not more broadly... so this is a chance to engage the wider community in awareness about the need for this approach."

WHY HASN'T IT BEEN RECOGNISED PREVIOUSLY?

"It's because some parliamentarians have been very slow on the uptake in terms of accepting first, that climate change is a problem and it is real, and secondly, realising that we have to do something about it."

WHAT IMPACT WILL THE REPORT HAVE ON EVERY DAY KIWIS?

"It should lead to more security for communities that are affected by climate change because we will work out what to do about that."

IS THIS A RELIEF FOR THOSE INVOLVED IN WORK AROUND CLIMATE CHANGE?

"Yes, it is. And it's very timely, because next year we are getting a climate change commission.

"We can basically take this report and put it into the climate commission's brief and let them get on with it."

HERE'S TAYLOR'S KEY POINT

"We need an agency to prepare a national strategy, and that's where the government's new, proposed climate commission comes in. The climate commission needs to be tasked with preparing an adaptation strategy...

"We need to join up the dots here. We need to join up theses reports with the governments proposed climate commission which it's going to be putting in place early next year."

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

Belinda Storey is a principal investigator for the Deep South National Science Challenge.

Her view is that the report is an "excellent piece of work".

She said, at a minimum, "we need to be thinking how we can avoid creating even more assets that are going to be stranded by sea level rise and increased storminess".

There are, however, complex issues associated with the report.

"One thing that the report is unlikely to resolve however is the ability of local governments to pay for these decisions. Implementation of the report's recommendations will inevitability involve trade-offs between private property owners' rights and the interests of the wider community, including ratepayers and beach visitors who not are directly impacted by sea level rise," Storey said.

"Adapting to sea level rise is going to be expensive. Who pays for adaptation and how the costs of sea level rise are distributed across our communities is something we're only just starting to seriously examine. 

"Local governments don't have the resources to fully address these issues. These issues are going to require either a material increase in rates and/or central government intervention to ensure fair and equitable outcomes for everyone who lives, works and plays on our coast."