Aotearoa is being warned that climate change is no longer a distant threat, with new national research identifying growing risks to infrastructure, communities, the natural environment and the Māori economy.
Dr Shaun Awatere of Ngāti Porou, Kaihautū Research Impact Leader at the Bioeconomy Science Institute, is among those bringing a Māori perspective to the growing debate over how the country prepares for a changing climate.
The Climate Change Commission’s 2026 National Climate Change Risk Assessment identifies 37 climate-related risks across seven domains, with ten areas singled out as requiring significant and coordinated action.
The assessment comes as communities confront the consequences of extreme weather, flooding, drought, coastal hazards and increasing pressure on infrastructure and ecosystems.
For Māori, however, the risks extend far beyond damaged roads, buildings and other physical assets.
A companion kaupapa Māori assessment, Ngā mea hirahira o te ao Māori, identifies seven national climate risks specifically affecting iwi and Māori.
Those risks extend across culture, health, economic livelihoods, the environment, legal rights and governance, with climate change threatening connections between tangata whenua, whenua and taonga species.
The research warns that all seven risks facing the te ao Māori domain increase in severity over time and under worsening climate scenarios.
Under a high-emissions trajectory, all seven are assessed as reaching extreme levels by 2090.
Among the major concerns are damage to Māori infrastructure, economic losses across Māori primary industries, worsening health inequities, declining access to taonga species and disruption to tikanga and hapū and iwi identity.
The report also identifies governance as part of the climate challenge, warning that excluding Māori from decision-making and failing to adequately resource Māori-led responses can increase vulnerability.
Climate adaptation therefore raises questions not only about where flood protection should be built or how infrastructure should be strengthened, but about who gets to make those decisions and how Māori communities are supported to prepare for changes affecting their whenua.
The Commission says climate change is increasingly affecting the core systems that keep daily life functioning across Aotearoa, and its assessment is intended to inform the Government’s next national adaptation plan, due in 2028.
For Māori communities already exposed to flooding, coastal erosion and pressure on whenua and natural resources, waiting until 2028 to begin serious preparation is unlikely to be enough.
The challenge is ensuring adaptation happens before communities reach crisis point and that iwi and hapū are properly resourced to develop solutions grounded in their own priorities, mātauranga and relationships with whenua.
The Bioeconomy Science Institute says climate resilience is one of the major challenges requiring researchers to work alongside industry, government and Māori partners rather than treating it as a problem belonging to any single scientific discipline.
For Awatere, the wider kōrero is about what resilience looks like for Māori and whether Aotearoa is prepared to make the decisions and investments required before climate risks become even harder and more expensive to manage.
The Commission’s assessment makes one point increasingly difficult to ignore: climate change is already reshaping Aotearoa.
The question now is whether the country — and particularly the communities carrying the greatest risks — will be given the resources and authority to prepare for what comes next.
#WaateaNews #RadioWaatea #MāoriNews #ShaunAwatere #NgātiPorou #ClimateChange #ClimateAction #ClimateAdaptation #ClimateResilience #HePouARangi #ClimateChangeCommission #BioeconomyScienceInstitute #MāoriClimate #MāoriClimateAction #TeAoMāori #MātaurangaMāori #Taiao #Whenua #TangataWhenua #Iwi #Hapū #Whānau #TinoRangatiratanga #ExtremeWeather #Flooding #Drought #CoastalErosion #ClimateRisk #MāoriEconomy #Aotearoa #NZClimate #NZNews
