Green MP Teanau Tuiono: Climate resilience means better urban planning and flood protection

Great North Rd in Auckland, near the Waterview interchange, after Oakley Creek flooded last month. Photo / Brett Phibbs

OPINION:

About 30 years ago, I was sitting in a lecture at the University of Auckland listening to Jeanette Fitzsimons talk about this thing called “climate change”.

For a much younger me, the impacts seemed abstract and far away, but with each passing decade the alarm bells have been ringing, and here we are.

It’s important to call it what it is. Climate change. Extreme weather events have been happening across the world on a near daily basis and frighteningly ever more frequently here at home - as the devastating floods in Auckland have shown us.

Events that had previously seemed unthinkable, even only a few years ago, are now happening at a pace and intensity we have never experienced before.

However, we know people want real action on climate change. We’re seeing more and more young people speaking up for their futures and communities. Parents and grandparents are taking action for a cleaner Aotearoa for their tamariki.

Climate action can help improve our towns and cities, and create more affordable, better-connected, climate-friendly places for us to live and work.

Successive governments have failed to plan for flourishing urban environments, leading to an over-reliance on roads and car parks, poor-quality buildings, and polluted waterways.

Climate resilience means better urban planning and flood protection. We need to stop urban sprawl into natural areas and our agricultural areas. Green belts around urban areas are essential for protecting biodiversity, and managing flooding.

We also need to make sure we have a plan to fix one of those pesky three waters - stormwater.

Most of our cities have incredibly old stormwater systems that urgently need upgrading, which is why we need central government-led investment in ageing infrastructure to prepare for more frequent and extreme weather events. And beyond this, we should be using more green infrastructure, which is shown to reduce surface flooding and improve water quality entering our rivers and seas. This is a crucial part of adapting to a changing climate. If we’d started investing in these solutions 30 years ago we’d be better off today, but it’s not too late to make the change.

Better planning means that cities and towns can be places where people and nature thrive, with affordable homes, low-emissions transport, clean rivers and beaches, and vibrant green spaces.

There are solutions to climate change. We know what they are. It’s now more urgent than ever that we take action.

We just have to push past the climate deniers and the corporate climate procrastinators who have continued to put profit before the planet. Our future is at stake here.

Teanau Tuiono is a Green list MP based in Palmerston North.