Abstract
Climate change is already making day-to-day life more precarious and more expensive, both for ordinary New Zealanders and for our local and central government. New Zealanders are increasingly interested in climate adaptation strategies, and conversations about the cost of early adaptation versus the risk of delayed action are growing in volume.
Researchers from the Deep South National Science Challenge are working on a huge range of climate adaptation issues. They are addressing urgent questions about the climate resilience of our national infrastructure. They are asking who will pay for climate adaptation, and how. And they're developing important solutions to the problem of decision-making in an uncertain future.
About the presenters
Professor Dave Frame, Director, New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute and Professor of Climate Change (Victoria University)
Dave Frame has many years' research experience in climate research, publishing in the world’s leading scientific journals as well as the specialist climate literature. Dave also has real world policy experience in the New Zealand Treasury's Policy Coordination and Development group. Prior to joining the NZ CCRI as Director and Professor of Climate Change, Dave was Deputy Director and Senior Research fellow at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, where he also lectured in the Department of Physics. He will talk about work commissioned by The Treasury looking at the costs of weather events that are attributable to climate change.
Belinda Storey, Managing Director of Climate Sigma
Belinda Storey is a Principal Investigator with the Deep South National Science Challenge and Managing Director of Climate Sigma. Her Deep South project Slow and sudden onset thresholds for private insurance retreat under climate change is examining where climate change is likely to cause insurance retreat in New Zealand's coastal cities and towns over the next two decades.
David Fleming and Ilan Noy, Fellow, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research
David Fleming and Ilan Noy will present their Deep South project Extreme weather, climate change & the EQC. By looking at EQC claims data across the country, this work provides a detailed overview of locations facing high rate of weather-related disaster claims and explore if these data can provide better insights in terms of disaster occurrence, intensity and recovery. The project also aims to establish future possible financial liabilities for the EQC given different climate change scenarios.