Will this summer of slosh get us moving on climate change?

Friday, 10 February 2023

Lana Hart is a Christchurch-based writer, broadcaster and tutor.

OPINION: Climate change-induced weather has exerted its mighty force upon Aotearoa this summer, taking lives, cutting off communities, destroying homes, businesses and clubs, and causing what could be over a billion dollars of damage.

Amidst the devastation, there is little debate about what is causing the extreme weather conditions that we are more used to seeing in places like Bangladesh, the US and Afghanistan. Our warming climate is caused by human activity, with our use of fossil fuels by far the largest contributor.

There is so much science and international consensus on the role of human activity in causing climate change that few are now bold or ignorant enough to publicly disagree. Storm by storm, drought after drought, wildfire by wildfire climate change sceptics are being silenced by weather events such as that of Auckland’s January 27 phenomenal downpour.

**READ MORE:

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* Greens' James Shaw looks for cross-party support for new climate change rules

* Rain records are going to keep falling after Auckland's floods

* Auckland floods: even stormwater reform won't be enough - we need a 'sponge city' to avoid future disasters

* The Auckland floods are a sign of things to come – the city needs stormwater systems fit for climate change

**

In the US Congress, for example, there are 23% fewer climate deniers making policy decisions than just six years ago. The Los Angeles Times editor recently asked in an opinion piece, “where have all the climate change deniers gone?” when he compared his newspaper’s letters to the editor in 2013 to today’s. As climate change threatens thousands of the planet’s species, one extinction may be the tribe of climate change sceptics themselves.

Despite climate change deniers’ voices being drowned out by compelling science, their influence lingers on. Even though our understanding of the relationship between carbon emissions and intense weather events is widespread and growing, it hasn’t necessarily converted to more action on reducing emissions. Our collective inaction – both globally and nationally – smacks of the same climate scepticism that can now only find audience in far-right rabbit holes of misinformation.

Indeed, New Zealanders’ attitudes to action on climate change appear to be behind those of most other parts of the world. In a 2021 global study, 72% of people surveyed across 30 countries agreed that if we don’t act now to combat climate change, we will be failing future generations. Only 62% of Kiwis agreed with this statement. In Australia, this figure was 69%.

“Despite multiple climate-related events and disasters in recent times, our attitudes and actions aren’t becoming any more urgent,” the report states. Our comparative ‘she’ll be right’ approach to climate change means we are less likely to make the high-impact changes to our lifestyles and legislation that are so desperately needed.

Part of our country’s stubborn resistance to change could in part lie with a specific cohort of powerful Kiwi men. Research has regularly demonstrated a correlation between a lower concern for the environment and right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation.

This group prefers social hierarchies to egalitarianism, supporting the dominance of some groups over others. Conformity and authority is important to this group, and they show a strong preference for people who are similar to themselves and hostility to those who are not.

Victoria University’s climate scientist James Renwick and others have argued that climate-change denialism is largely the preserve of conservative white males. Waikato University’s Taciano Milfont notes that this group holds a disproportionate amount of socio-political and economic power and that “actions to address climate change might reduce the socio-political and economic power these folks currently enjoy in society, hence attempts to change the status quo would be received with backlash”.

Meanwhile, as cars and businesses are ruined by the rains of a changing climate and as floodwater laps at the doors of multi-million dollar homes, I wonder about the politically conservative, authoritarian-type white men whose lives have been so directly affected by the impacts of a rapidly-warming planet. As a group, will they continue to resist the need to change the way we live?

Some research demonstrates that people who experience the impacts of severe weather events are more likely to be concerned about climate change even years after the disaster. Intuitively, it makes sense too: our personal experiences shape our political views.

Maybe that’s the silver lining to New Zealand’s summer of slosh.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw is right when he said last week that “I don’t think that it should be only for the Greens to be championing the fact that we need to respond to the effects of climate change that are already happening”. He continues to seek cross-party support for difficult climate change initiatives like Resource Management Act reform and managed retreats from hazard-prone areas.

National’s Todd Muller agrees that legislative change is “so important that this doesn’t seesaw across different governments”.

Hopefully these tragic weather events, one by one, year after year, will finally force New Zealand’s ratepayers, voters, community groups, and white conservative men into advocating for systemic, legislative change that will have an impact on the biggest problem of our age – one that is raining down on all of us.