A leading New Zealand climate adaptation scientist is warning that the world is now increasingly likely to push beyond the critical 1.5°C warming threshold, meaning Aotearoa must urgently move from talking about climate resilience to actually building it into our farms, cities, infrastructure and communities.
Dr Nicholas Cradock-Henry, Principal Social Scientist at Earth Sciences New Zealand, says the evidence is becoming increasingly stark: reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains essential, but countries must simultaneously prepare for climate impacts that can no longer be avoided.
Cradock-Henry is also a Lead Author for Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Seventh Assessment Report, which is assessing climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability.
His warning follows new international analysis of the growing risk of the world overshooting 1.5°C, with the consequences likely to reach far beyond higher average temperatures.
1.5°C no longer just a distant warning
For years, international climate policy has centred on efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
But Cradock-Henry says it is now almost certain that warming will move beyond that level, requiring both dramatic reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to consequences already becoming unavoidable.
That does not mean the 1.5°C target suddenly becomes irrelevant.
How far temperatures rise, how long any overshoot lasts and how quickly emissions fall will all influence the severity of future impacts.
But for governments and communities, the message is increasingly clear.
Planning based on the climate of the past is no longer enough.
More than simply hotter summers
Climate change beyond 1.5°C is not simply about adding another fraction of a degree to the temperature.
Cradock-Henry warns that departure from historical climate conditions will affect rainfall, temperatures and both the frequency and severity of extreme events.
Those changes can exceed the ability of existing social and economic systems to cope.
Agriculture, food security, freshwater availability, human health and livelihoods are among the areas exposed.
And climate impacts rarely occur neatly in isolation.
A severe weather event can damage roads and electricity networks, disrupt food production, isolate communities, affect businesses and create additional pressure on health and emergency services at the same time.
That potential for compounding and cascading impacts is one reason resilience needs to be considered across the whole economy rather than treated solely as an environmental issue.
Aotearoa cannot isolate itself from global disruption
New Zealand’s geographic isolation will not shield the country.
As an internationally connected trading nation, Cradock-Henry says Aotearoa remains vulnerable to global supply-chain disruption, changing marine ecosystems and geopolitical pressures intensified by climate change.
Those effects can ultimately flow through to the New Zealand economy.
For an export economy dependent on agriculture, horticulture, fisheries and forestry, changing weather patterns can also have direct consequences at home.
Earth Sciences New Zealand research has found that changing land use can become an important adaptation strategy, but decisions are difficult because they involve uncertainty, long lead times and substantial investment.
A farmer or grower cannot necessarily transform a business model after the next drought, flood or major storm arrives.
Those decisions may need to begin years beforehand.
Māori face climate risks on multiple fronts
The climate adaptation challenge carries particular significance for Māori.
Cradock-Henry warns that globally the consequences of climate change will not be distributed evenly, with marginalised, Indigenous and vulnerable populations among those facing disproportionate impacts while often having fewer resources available to respond.
In Aotearoa, climate resilience also intersects directly with whenua, whakapapa and kaitiakitanga.
Marae and papakāinga in flood-prone or coastal locations cannot simply be treated as buildings on a risk map.
Whenua Māori cannot always be approached as an ordinary commercial asset that can simply be sold when environmental conditions become difficult.
For iwi and hapū, climate impacts can affect wāhi tapu, mahinga kai, awa, coastal ecosystems and places carrying generations of cultural significance.
Adaptation therefore needs to recognise not only economic value, but cultural, intergenerational and community values when decisions about land and infrastructure are made.
Recent New Zealand research involving Cradock-Henry reinforces that point, finding land-use adaptation decisions are shaped by the interaction of values, rules and knowledge, rather than technical information alone.
Stop planning and start doing
One of the biggest problems confronting New Zealand is not necessarily a shortage of information.
It is turning knowledge into action.
Cradock-Henry leads the five-year Accelerating Adaptation to Climate Change: From Decisions to Action research programme, backed by nearly $12 million through the Endeavour Fund.
The programme starts from a blunt assessment: New Zealand understands many of the risks posed by rising seas, changing rainfall and more intense storms, but is struggling to respond at the speed and scale required.
Previous research has similarly identified an adaptation implementation gap, where information about likely climate impacts exists but concrete pre-emptive action remains difficult.
That gap becomes increasingly dangerous as warming continues.
Infrastructure built today must survive tomorrow
The warning has major implications for decisions being made right now.
Roads, bridges, housing developments, water infrastructure, hospitals, electricity networks and coastal protection built today may still be operating decades from now.
Designing them around historical climate conditions risks creating expensive vulnerabilities for future generations.
Cradock-Henry argues adaptation planning must account for the possibility of more extreme outcomes, including interconnected failures across infrastructure and economic systems.
That does not necessarily mean attempting to predict precisely what the climate will look like in every community decades into the future.
It means building flexibility into decisions so communities have options as conditions change.
Adaptation does not replace cutting emissions
There is also an important distinction.
Preparing for climate change is not an alternative to reducing emissions.
The two need to happen together.
Previous IPCC work has found the effectiveness of adaptation is itself constrained by the speed of global emissions reductions and the capacity of natural, social and political systems to respond.
The hotter the world becomes, the more difficult and expensive adaptation can become.
Some impacts may eventually move beyond what communities or ecosystems can realistically adapt to.
That means mitigation remains essential even while governments prepare for warming already locked into the system.
Resilience becomes a national priority
Cradock-Henry’s message ultimately reaches well beyond climate scientists and environmental agencies.
Climate resilience will require decisions from central and local government, iwi and hapū, farmers, businesses, infrastructure providers, insurers, banks and individual communities.
It also raises difficult questions about who pays.
Should homeowners carry the cost of defending vulnerable properties?
Should councils?
Should central government?
And how does Aotearoa ensure communities with the least financial capacity — including vulnerable Māori and rural communities — are not left carrying the greatest burden?
Those questions will become increasingly difficult to avoid.
The climate debate is no longer only about preventing a future problem.
The future being warned about is beginning to arrive.
For Aotearoa, the challenge now is to cut emissions while simultaneously preparing communities, infrastructure, businesses and the environment for conditions increasingly different from those upon which modern New Zealand was built.
And beyond 1.5°C, resilience is no longer something to plan for eventually — it becomes something Aotearoa needs to build now.
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