The purpose of the Regional Adaptation Project (RAP) is to come up with a mechanism or set of actions that can help us best position ourselves as a region to deal with the current and future impacts of a changing climate.The RAP will identify the innovations and changes needed, to make better decisions and increase the resilience of our people, the things we value, our environment and the economy.
Read an interview with RAP Project Lead Tom FitzGerald here.
WHY IS THIS PROJECT IMPORTANT?
Even with strong global action to reduce emissions, the impacts of climate change will increase over the coming decades due to past emissions. Adaptation is a critical longer-term response to climate change, and it is crucial to protecting people, livelihoods, and ecosystems and ensuring growth and development occurs in the right places. The WRLC has committed to delivering a regional approach to adaptation as a key part of its work programme.
WHAT IS CLIMATE ADAPTATION?
Climate adaptation involves adjusting to actual or expected climate change and its effects, whether slow-onset impacts like temperature increase or sea level rise, or acute impacts such as wildfires floods, and severe storms. Adaptation actions may be simple – ensuring people have a cool place to go during a heatwave; or complex – maintaining essential functions such as transport systems during a severe storm, or helping to relocate whole communities from risky locations. Completion of the Wellington Regional Climate Change Impact Assessment (WRCCIA) is a critical step in this journey.
WHO IS INVOLVED?
Adaptation involves everyone. Governments, households, industry, businesses and community organisations all have a role to play. Climate risk management and adaptation will need to be mainstreamed into BAU and require a fundamental shift in operations for all.
LATEST MAHI
From May to August 2024, conversations and engagement will be held with mana whenua, local and central government organisations and other interested parties to refine this project’s scope.
Council-led adaptation mahi around New Zealand to date has largely centred around the (updated) 10-step decision cycle provided in Ministry for the Environment guidance – below:
