One of the country’s leading public health experts says more needs to be spent on climate change.
Budget 2023 includes major expansion of nationwide electric vehicle charging network and investment to build resilience in the roading network with significant upgrades for slip prevention, flood mitigation, and managing risk of sea level rise around the country.
Professor Sir Collin Tukuitonga from the University of Auckland medical school says recent extreme weather events should be enough to persuade the skeptics that the climate crisis is present, real and will continue to impact us in a big way.
“This is of course the experience of many in the islands and they’ve been trying to tell the world about the impact of the climate crisis on their lives, their livelihoods, their whanau and so on and my prediction is it will get worse in Aotearoa as well,” he says.
Sir Collin, who’s a former director general of the South Pacific Commission, says New Zealand is starting to take a more flexible approach to aid to the Pacific, which gives more respect to the dignity and mana of island nations.
