Meeting of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council
Late Items
Date: 25 May 2022
Time: 1.30pm
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Venue: |
Council Chamber Hawke's Bay Regional Council 159 Dalton Street NAPIER |
Agenda
Item Title Page
Information or Performance Monitoring
14. Staff submission on the National Adaptation Plan 3
25 May 2022
Subject: Staff submission on the National Adaptation Plan
Reason for Report
1. Staff have prepared a draft submission on the Government’s recently released draft National Adaptation Plan (NAP) for a changing climate. This report presents that draft submission (attachment 1) for feedback from councillors to enable it to be finalised and lodged before the 3 June 2022 submission deadline.
Overview
2. The Government is putting together a national plan to help Aotearoa New Zealand adapt to the impacts of climate change that are locked in and can’t be reversed. Lowering emissions can reduce the impacts of climate change but won’t eliminate them all.
3. On 27 April 2022, the Government released a draft NAP for public feedback before 3 June. Also released was a consultation document outlining some questions and options for managed retreat.
4. This follows on from the findings and recommendations of the First National Climate Change Risk Assessment released in 2020.
5. The Minister of Climate Change, Hon James Shaw says in the NAP’s Foreword:
5.1. “Central government will not bear every risk and cost of climate change, including climate change adaptation. Risk and cost will fall across different parts of society, including asset or property owners, their insurance companies, their banks, local government and central government. The Government has choices about the role it plays and how it influences the way these costs and risks fall.”
6. The NAP brings together in one place the Government’s current efforts to help to build New Zealand’s climate resilience. And it sets out a proposed future work programme, indicating the Government’s priorities for the next six years. The actions in the NAP are intended to drive a significant, long-term shift in Government’s policy and institutional frameworks. And they will result in better information about what our future climate will look like, enabling better decisions about our response.
7. The first NAP sets a long-term vision and high-level goals for adaptation action as part of an overall ‘Adaptation Strategy’ illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: New Zealand’s Adaptation Strategy (from draft NAP, page 13)
8. The draft NAP is structured to reflect proposed objectives and actions across the domains:
8.1. System-wide actions
8.2. The natural environment
8.3. Homes, buildings, and places
8.4. Infrastructure
8.5. Communities
8.6. Economy and financial system.
9. Earlier in May, the Government set out a work plan to reduce emissions and limit the severity of future climate change – known as the National Emissions Reduction Plan.
Submissions
10. At least three other local government sector representative groups are preparing submissions on the draft NAP:
10.1. Te Uru Kahika (all Regional Councils and Unitary Authorities of New Zealand)
10.2. Taituara - local government managers
10.3. Local Government New Zealand.
11. A succinct focused submission has been drafted by senior staff (refer Attachment 1). The approach taken in drafting was to deliberately:
11.1. avoid repetition with the three other sector representative voices
11.2. avoid commenting on general matters
11.3. focus on a few key matters of importance to the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and/or the Hawke’s Bay region.
12. For Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, the draft submission recommends that the NAP needs to prioritise efforts towards (at least):
12.1. Flood management schemes (and community resilience to flooding events)
12.2. Land use change and practices to achieve water resilience
12.3. Systems and institutions for empowering efficient managed retreat, particularly from areas impacted by rising sea levels. The Regional Council has been at the forefront of these challenges arising from the Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Management Strategy 2120 project which is briefly mentioned as a case study in the draft NAP document (at page 38).
12.4. Work programmes and packages that present synergies and opportunities for climate adaptation and solutions to other big environmental challenges (e.g. indigenous biodiversity losses, maintaining or improving freshwater quality, etc).
13. An important system-wide action in the draft NAP is to develop legislation that will address the complex issues associated with managed retreat. That legislation will be the third key piece in a suite of legislation being developed as part of the resource management system reform. Nonetheless, many local government practitioners had expected the NAP to provide clear guidance to them about their role in adapting to climate change, and how this may be achieved. Disappointingly, the draft NAP does not do that, nor does it provide any clarity about adaptation priorities. However, MFE officials have given reassurances that there will be further opportunities to comment on and influence managed retreat policy – a key one being through submissions on the Climate Adaptation Bill expected in 2023. Consequently, the draft submission does not tackle the myriad of issues which may or may not emerge from a better-developed managed retreat policy as part of resource management system reforms.
Decision Making Process
14. Staff have assessed the requirements of the Local Government Act 2002 in relation to this item and have concluded that, as this report is for information and prompts feedback only, the decision making provisions do not apply.
That Hawke’s Bay Regional Council receives and notes the Staff submission on the National Adaptation Plan report.
Authored by:
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Gavin Ide Principal Advisor Strategic Planning |
Pippa McKelvie-Sebileau Climate Action Ambassador |
Approved by:
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James Palmer Chief Executive |
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draft HBRC submission on Draft National Adaptation Plan - May 2022 |
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