Approach to funding infrastructure needed to avoid 'managed retreat' from climate change damaged assets
Neil Holdom is the mayor of the New Plymouth District. OPINION: Nelson, Marlborough, Gisborne, Waitaki, Coromandel and now Auckland. The common thread. Extremely heavy rain causing widespread damage to our roading networks. Those who deny our climate is changing are struggling to dismiss these events as one-offs given their increasing regularity. Our former Prime Minister championed Governments response to climate change with a focus on policies signalling a commitment to reducing emissions. READ MORE: * 'Couldn't come fast enough': Taranaki mostly welcomes Govt's relief of Covid-19 restrictions * Waikato transport policy passes, but councillor labels it a 'disgrace' * Waikato transport plan 'total climate failure' city councillor Targeting 100% renewable electricity by 2030, clean car rebates to increase the uptake of electric vehicles, a carbon neutral public service by 2025, increased funding for public transport and rail. These policies look out over decades and are focused on slowly driving New Zealand towards the goal of net carbon zero 2050, but what is our climate change policy missing? 2050 is a long way off. But the severe weather events of 2021, 2022 and now 2023 in Auckland have highlighted the reality that our approach to maintaining and developing public infrastructure is going to have to change far more quickly than our national emissions. Auckland Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Simon Bridges this week commented that the repair bill for Fridays heavy rain in Auckland will be in the hundreds of millions. Thames Coromandel Mayor Len Salt highlighted a fix to the significant slip on State Highway 25a is months away and that the hill is still moving. NZTA/Waka Kotahi may have got the majority of the main highways open in and around Auckland but the funding agreements it has with councils theoretically sees it picking up at least half the costs of damage to local roads and bridges and heres where we get to the crunch for local communities impacted by these events. NZTA dont have the cash to repair this damage and neither do councils. While policy has been developed looking out to 2050 the policy needed to address the impacts of our changing climate right now has not been developed or funded. There is no new money planned for this critical element of our national climate response and the losers will be those people who rely on public highways and local roads which are literally being washed away. NZTA has a budget for reactive maintenance which allows it to fund or cofund unexpected work on highways and local roads following storm events. But the budgets are not sufficient to meet the growing demand. If you are looking for evidence of this policy failure just drive around Nelson, Marlborough, Gisborne, Waitaki, Coromandel, Auckland and many other locations across New Zealand where they simply dont have the money to fully fix already broken roads. NZTA has been asked to spread its focus across safety, public transport, rail, roads of national significance, decarbonisation and maintenance in a time when the climate is changing and construction costs are increasing around 16% per annum. If budgets do not increase by the rate of inflation each year they are effectively being reduced. There simply isnt enough money to do everything NZTA has been asked to deliver and something has to give. What New Zealanders have been seeing and will continue to see over the next few years is maintenance and repairs slowing down after these events. The fewer vehicles that use a section of road, the longer it will take for repairs to be completed, if they are completed at all. Unless Government is prepared to step up with significant additional climate response funding this trend will continue. And just to be clear, increased funding means increases in fuel taxes and road user charges. The decline will be most pronounced in low-lying coastal, rural and remote rural communities and will hit a crisis point when currently maintained roads are abandoned. As councils struggle to deal with escalating costs and challenges responding to weather damage to roads we should look to their approach to other climate-related issues to get a feel for where things are going. When it comes to sea-level rise it is generally accepted that communities are unlikely to take the Dutch approach to land management by building dykes and sea walls. New Zealand is opting for an approach known as managed retreat. Essentially as the sea level rises and land is swallowed up, land and homeowners take the hit, in some cases offset by insurance. The reality is with the current policy settings in New Zealand we can expect a managed retreat of maintenance on local roads in rural, remote rural and coastal areas over the next decade and potentially sooner. But we are not having public discussions or developing clear and consistent plans around this. We are simply stumbling into it while the weather intensifies leaving councils and NZTA to battle it out behind the scenes to figure out who will pay for what, when and where. Larger councils and those with stronger balance sheets will be able to absorb these costs for a period of time but eventually either funding for rebuilding roading after severe weather events will have to increase significantly at a national level or communities will be left with more crumbling and closed roads and the significant economic losses that come with the resulting isolation. 2023 is the year the big wet smashed Auckland. Hopefully one of the lessons learned is that Government, including all political parties aspiring to lead New Zealand after the next election, commit to adequately fund NZTA to respond to the increasing damage climate change is inflicting on our national roading infrastructure right now. Neil Holdom is the mayor of the New Plymouth District.