1. Climate Change—AdaptationMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green) to the Minister for Climate ChangeORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSClimate Change—Adaptation1. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green) to the Minister for Climate Change: What is he doing to help New Zealand adapt to the effects of climate change?Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): I thank the member for her question. Last month I released the Climate Change Adaptation Technical Working Group's stocktake on the risks and impacts of climate change as well as renewed guidance to local councils on sea level rise. In April of this year the adaptation technical working group will release its second report which is on policy options to respond to the challenge. I think this will form a good basis for the much-needed strong national direction that we need to take on dealing with the effects of climate change on farmers on local communities and on infrastructure in New Zealand.Marama Davidson: Why is it important for our communities to adapt to the effects of climate change?Hon JAMES SHAW: I think sometimes in New Zealand we think of climate change as happening somewhere else to someone else in the future but as the mercury hit 40 degrees in some parts of New Zealand yesterday—while I acknowledge that it's been a spectacular summer for many people it's pretty obvious that we can't ignore the very serious impacts of climate change in terms of droughts or more frequent storms floods and fires. My visit to Dunedin yesterday brought home the very real concerns that people have got in that city in particular about the threat of rising seas and increasingly severe and frequent flood events.Marama Davidson: What did the Minister learn in Dunedin yesterday about communities facing the effects of climate change?Hon JAMES SHAW: My visit yesterday gave me an opportunity to meet with the Greater South Dunedin Action Group the mayor and city councillors the chancellor and vice-chancellor of the university and the local member of Parliament Clare Curran to look around some of the low-lying areas of South Dunedin and central Dunedin. It's immediately apparent to me that this is a community that is deeply engaged with the questions around the need for a long-term strategic plan to deal with the effects of climate change and to adapt to it. I was very encouraged that that community is looking to take a leadership position and see it as an opportunity to get ahead of the adaptation challenge and then to offer the lessons learnt to other communities around the country that will also be dealing with the same set of challenges.Marama Davidson: Is the Minister satisfied with the progress being made on adapting to climate change?Hon JAMES SHAW: No I'm not satisfied at the moment. I think that there have been a number of very significant and really useful pieces of work some of which were initiated by the previous Government such as the stocktake report and the coastal hazards guidance that I referred to before which give us an indication of the scale of the challenge. Certainly there are some councils and organisations around the country that are leading on this and I do want to acknowledge their work but I have to say I do not think that we are there yet. It's very clear to me particularly after this summer that we need a more comprehensive nationwide risk assessment and to plan as a country rather than to leave it up to individual councils. That is why I'm making adaptation to the effects of climate change one of our top priorities of work for our programme this year.