Team up, get the best possible data and act fast, the message residents heard Wednesday night was packed into a community hall to discuss the effect of sea level rise on Wellington’s south coast.
The coast is hit hard in bad weather, with giant waves flooding roads and properties – most recently, in May, residents of Ōwhiro Bay gave a truckload of sandbags by the Wellington City Council to protect their homes from 5.5-meter waves.
More than 100 residents, councilors, politicians, hopeful mayors and climate scientists turned up at Baptist Church in Island Bay to hear from the experts, including Climate Change Minister James Shaw – and he did not sugarcoat things.
“The best thing you can do is to come together as a community [and] get the best possible data, ”Shaw said.
READ MORE:
* Residents celebrate while diggers arrive on Wellington South Coast beach
* Expect more floods, slips, Wellington warned after wild and damaging winter
* Heavy machinery ready to resolve Ōwhiro Bay wave issue – even without permission
“If you leave it to the central government, you will a) get a very bad solution, and b) it will arrive about five years after you flooded.”
Wellington’s sea level has risen by 20 centimeters over the past century – and scientists predict a five-fold rise in the next 100 years.
KEVIN STENT
Climate change minister James Shaw did not sugarcoat at a meeting with coastal property owners in Wellington on Wednesday.
Work was done to grade the rocky beach along the south coast that was worst affected, as the rocks created a ramp that led waves up and down the road and to properties.
Local resident and organizer Eugene Doyle said the community needs leadership and government support, along with “access to better data, drill bay by bay, bridge, by bridge, road by road, so we can really start answering questions like that will our coast looks like in 20, 30, 50 years ”.
It was indispensable to involve the community. Ordinary people will pay the price for no action, or slow action – “Nothing for us, without us.”
KEVIN STENT
Residents have been told adapting to the effects of climate change is “probably the single most complex policy challenge”.
Shaw told residents adapting to the effects of climate change is “probably the single most complex policy challenge.”
The government’s climate change adaptation plan has the task of identifying and prioritizing the issues.
There were four options, Shaw said – do nothing, accommodate the change, try to defend the property with sea walls (“Talk to the good people of New Orleans when you surround your city with walls and it gets full like a bath” ) or withdraw.
WELL
Rivers bursting their banks, flash floods and more intense cyclones. How climate change is making floods more extreme.
“None of the options before us are cost-free or consequence-free, and no option will suit every community.”
Each inhabitant had to play a role – one sea wall was not nearly as affective as a series of connected sea walls.
Climate scientist and associate professor at Victoria University of Wellington, Richard Levy, explained to residents how to access NZ SeaRise data and use those projections to prepare. “Thirty centimeters of sea level rise turns a 1-in-100-year event into an annual event,” he said.
Even 20 centimeters of sea level rise can have an effect. There were nods around the room.
That would be the height of a flat ocean, Levy said – “as most of you in this room know, it’s the waves that matter.”