Climate change
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues faced by central and local governments worldwide. It is internationally accepted that the climate is changing due to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – with changes observed at a global and regional level.
Climate change may threaten our built infrastructure and way of living, but may also provide opportunities that come through a warmer climate. Adapting to these climate changes requires long-term planning to allow for changes in behaviour and infrastructure locations. As a local authority we recognise that we make decisions that span generations – so we must actively assess and respond to the risks and opportunities that climate change presents.
Selwyn District Council was one of the earliest signatories to the New Zealand Local Government Leaders’ Climate Change Declaration 2017. As a signatory, the Council is committed to developing and implementing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to engage with tangata whenua, and to support resilience within our local communities.
Along with other agencies, we also work to improve the resource efficiency and health of homes, businesses and infrastructure in our district, and help communities to understand and prepare for the physical impacts of climate change.
What’s the Council doing about climate change?
Assessing our risk
We are collaborating with our regional partners in the Canterbury Climate Change Working Group and the Mayoral Forum Climate Change Steering Group. This group has been laying the foundations for a regional climate change risk assessment. A high-level risk screening broadly identifies risks and opportunities arising from climate change, and a companion report provides an overview of adaptation work already being undertaken in the region. This is being followed up with a more in-depth risk assessment this year.
Priority risks identified in Canterbury included hazards such as sea level rise, flooding, coastal erosion, fire, higher temperatures, drought, and storms. These could potentially affect the natural environment as well as the region’s economy and built environment. A recent report from the Ministry for the Environment highlights climate changes already observed in many people’s lifetime. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s projections for Canterbury indicate significant changes in rainfall patterns, increased evapotranspiration and rising sea levels affecting infrastructure close to the coast.
We’ve carried out an initial assessment of flooding hazard in low lying plains and coastal areas, using computer-based flood modelling to predict the extent and depth of flooding. We also completed an assessment of climate change impacts on water assets in 2017 and 2020, looking at trends in climate change data and the potential impacts on Selwyn’s water infrastructure. At this stage the assessment shows only low to minor impacts in Selwyn during the period of this Long-Term Plan.
Planning our response
With our regional partners, we’re planning further work to carry out more detailed risk assessments, and to develop cross-sector plans for adaptation to climate change. We will identify a short list of prioritised risks based on existing management actions and urgency. This will feed into a comprehensive adaptation strategy.
Within the Council, an expert group has been formed to examine climate change-related opportunities and risks, and to develop an integrated adaptation action plan that will feed into planning processes.
Putting climate change at the heart of decision-making
In 2020 we took a further step to put climate change at the heart of our work, adopting our first formal climate change policy. This brings together several areas of work into a consolidated blueprint for action on climate change, and commits the Council to make climate change mitigation and adaptation central to its planning and decision-making.
Measuring our own carbon footprint
As part of its leadership role in addressing climate change locally, we have recently undertaken an assessment of our carbon emissions for the 2018/19 year. This assessment, which will be published this year, forms a baseline against which future carbon emissions will be compared. Establishing a baseline is the first crucial step towards meeting our obligations under the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019, targeting net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
We will continue to monitor our emissions, and will set reduction targets to be incorporated into future long-term and annual plans, and identify opportunities to reduce emissions in our own operations and those of our contractors.
More information can be found in Canterbury Climate Change Risk Screening Interim Report by the Canterbury Mayoral Forum.
