Micky has a post up, Triangulating climate change, about the jarring shift yesterday from Labour on road transport and climate. Transport Minister Michael Wood released a promising and exciting plan for a major shift in New Zealand transport systems to help mitigate climate change by reducing our GHG emissions.
Then Chris Hipkins as Prime Minister announced that recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle will take precedence. There’s a good explainer here (and in other comments), about the politics involved and what just happened. I’m going to focus on climate impacts and the concept of transition.
In the panic shift to adaptation over mitigation, what many people are missing is that transition, the process by which we both mitigate and adapt as we shift to a regenerative economy, gives us the best chance of future security. It offers us different but still good lives.
The key here is to shift from binary thinking to both/and. Rather than getting caught up in adaptation vs mitigation arguments (or cyclone recovery vs transition road transport strategy), simply shifting to both/and thinking opens up new options.
Here’s head of communications at GreenpeaceNZ yesterday,
I’ll reiterate what Nick is saying: the best adaptations are also mitigations that both build resilience AND reduce emissions. There is a synergy that happens when we do both, each feeding into and enhancing the other.
There is an excellent piece by Climate Minister James Shaw in the Guardian this week, We can’t afford to choose adaptation over cutting emissions – suggesting otherwise is dangerous,
Despite what some New Zealand right-wingers are arguing, adaptation will not help us in a world three degrees warmer.…Let me use an example: it will be almost impossible to farm in a world that is three degrees warmer. Absent any plan to cut emissions, National and Act look willing enough to sacrifice the future of rural communities on the altar of short-term electoral politics.
Adaptation is critical but has its limits. We must limit warming as much as we can so we have a chance to adapt. Even with the progress we’ve made, our likely future still lies well beyond thresholds considered “safe”. Without urgent action to limit warming, we will very quickly reach adaptation limits. To be resilient, we need both immediate and urgent action to limit warming, and action to adapt to what we know cannot be avoided. With a new cyclone recovery taskforce up and running, I have three guideposts that should direct where we go from here.
The Climate Minister’s three guideposts,
The impacts of climate change will get worse until we stop polluting the atmosphere.
Two degrees of warming is not as bad as three degrees – and 1.5 degrees not as bad as two degrees. Urgent action to cut emissions is the frontline of defence. Every fraction of a degree matters. Every tonne of climate pollution that is stopped matters.
Some degree of climate change is already locked in, we need to plan for this.
Our focus needs to shift from short-term preparedness towards creating stronger communities. Resilient, affordable, inclusive communities that can meet everyone’s needs despite the challenges of the disrupted climate.
We need to get serious about this new approach. Otherwise, the changes we experience will be forced on us by extreme weather disasters, rather than our efforts to create vibrant, connected communities, even as climate change shapes how we live.
Extreme weather affects everyone, some people are more badly affected, we need to make transition fair.
The option to move somewhere safer, less prone to flooding doesn’t exist for many people. Some people will be forced to go into debt to replace essentials like beds or curtains. This unequal impact puts people at greater risk when the next inevitable climate-fuelled weather event arrives.
How we go about building resilient communities is a question that we all need to be asking ourselves. For me, the answer is clear: a more equal and inclusive society is a more adaptive and resilient society.
When I say the government needs to understand that mitigation and transition are twins, I of course mean Labour. It’s already the core position the Greens. Labour have to win the election, so I appreciate they’re between a rock and a hard place. However, messaging is vital on this issue at this time. When climate is at the forefront of many people’s minds, it’s the exact time to talk about the crucial nature of mitigation and how it relates to adaptation.
This is also why having more Greens in government is one of the most straight forward ways of getting better action on climate. Why isn’t Shaw, the government’s Climate Minister, being used by Labour at the moment? More Green MPs and thus more negotiating power post-election would mean we more have climate literate and articulate people speaking for the government as well as helping design the transition systems we desperately need.
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