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  • Impact Connector
    • Issue #16 SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing >
      • SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing: Intro
      • The drivers and agents of on-farm change in Aotearoa New Zealand
      • Social-ecological assessment for remote and island communities
      • The Impact of Substandard Rural Housing on Resilience and Wellbeing in Te Tai Tokerau
      • Success factors for planning regeneration in rural areas
    • Issue #15 Economic methods and Impact Assessment >
      • Economic methods in impact assessment: an introduction
      • The Nature of Economic Analysis for Resource Management
      • The State-of-the-Art and Prospects: Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services in Environmental Impact Assessment
      • Economic impact assessment and regional development: reflections on Queensland mining impacts
      • Fonterra’s policy on economic incentives for promoting sustainable farming practices
    • Issue #14 Impact assessment for infrastructure development >
      • Impact assessment for infrastructure development - an introduction
      • Place Matters: The importance of geographic assessment of areas of influence in understanding the social effects of large-scale transport investment in Wellington
      • Unplanned Consequences? New Zealand's experiment with urban (un)planning and infrastructure implications
      • Reflections on infrastructure, Town and Country planning and intimations of SIA in the late 1970s and early 1980s
      • SIA guidance for infrastructure and economic development projects
      • Scoping in impact assessments for infrastructure projects: Reflections on South African experiences
      • Impact Assessment for Pacific Island Infrastructure
    • Issue #13 Health impact assessment: practice issues >
      • Introduction to health impact assessment: practice issues
      • International Health Impact Assessment – a personal view
      • Use of Health Impact Assessment to develop climate change adaptation plans for health
      • An integrated approach to assessing health impacts
      • Assessing the health and social impacts of transport policies and projects
      • Whither HIA in New Zealand….or just wither?
    • Issue #12 Risk Assessment: Case Studies and Approaches >
      • Introduction
      • Risk Assessment and Impact Assessment : A perspective from Victoria, Australia
      • The New and Adaptive Paradigm Needed to Manage Rising Coastal Risks
      • Reflections on Using Risk Assessments in Understanding Climate Change Adaptation Needs in Te Taitokerau Northland
      • Values-Based Impact Assessment and Emergency Management
      • Certainty about Communicating Uncertainty: Assessment of Flood Loss and Damage
      • Improving Understanding of Rockfall Geohazard Risk in New Zealand
      • Normalised New Zealand Natural Disaster Insurance Losses: 1968-2019
      • Houston, We Have a Problem - Seamless Integration of Weather and Climate Forecast for Community Resilience
      • Innovating with Online Data to Understand Risk and Impact in a Data Poor Environment
    • Impact Connector #11 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Impact Assessment: views from the Pacific >
      • Introduction
      • Climate change adaptation and mitigation, impact assessment, and decision-making: a Pacific perspective
      • Climate adaptation and impact assessment in the Pacific: overview of SPREP-sponsored presentations
      • Land and Sea: Integrated Assessment of the Temaiku Land and Urban Development Project in Kiribati
      • Strategic Environmental Assessment: Rising to the SDG Challenge
      • Coastal Engineering for Climate Change Resilience in Eastern Tongatapu, Tonga
      • Climate-induced Migration in the Pacific: The Role of New Zealand
    • Impact Connector #10 Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >
      • Introduction
      • Is a “just transition” possible for Māori?
      • Adapting to Climate Change on Scale: Addressing the Challenge and Understanding the Impacts of Asia Mega-Cities
      • How responding to climate change might affect health, for better or for worse
      • Kanuka, Kereru and carbon capture - Assessing the effects of a programme taking a fresh look at the hill and high country land resource
      • Wairoa: Community perceptions of increased afforestation
      • Te Kākahu Kahukura Ecological Restoration project: A story within a story
    • Issue #9 Impacts of Covid-19 >
      • Introduction to Impact Connector Issue 9 – Impact assessment and Covid 19
      • Covid-19 fast-track consenting: climate change legacy key to success
      • Tourism – the long haul ahead
      • Making sense of the impact of Covid-19: planning, politics, and the public good
    • Issue #8 Social Impact Assessment >
      • Challenges for Social Impact Assessment in New Zealand: looking backwards and looking forwards
      • Insights from the eighties: early Social Impact Assessment reports on rural community dynamics
      • Impact Assessment and the Capitals Framework: A Systems-based Approach to Understanding and Evaluating Wellbeing
      • Building resilience in Rural Communities – a focus on mobile population groups
      • Assessing the Impacts of a New Cycle Trail: A Fieldnote
      • The challenges of a new biodiversity strategy for social impact assessment (SIA)
      • “Say goodbye to traffic”? The role of SIA in establishing whether ‘air taxis’ are the logical next step in the evolution of transportation
    • Issue #7 Ecological Impact Assessment >
      • The future of Ecological Impact Assessment in New Zealand
      • Ecological impact assessment and roading projects
      • EcIA and the Resource Management Act
      • Professional Practice and implementation of EcIA
      • EcIA in the Marine Environment
    • Issue #6 Landscape Assessment >
      • Introduction
      • Lives and landscapes: who cares, what about, and does it matter?
      • Regional Landscape Inconsistency
      • Landscape management in the new world order
      • Landscape assessment and the Environment Court
      • Natural character assessments and provisions in a coastal environment
      • The Assessment and Management of Amenity
      • The rise of the THIMBY
      • Landscape - Is there a common understanding of the Common?
    • Issue #5 Cultural Impact Assessment >
      • Introduction
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      • The Mitigation Dilemma
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Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: the role of impact assessment

Richard Morgan
Climate change mitigation and adaptation provide important opportunities for impact assessment (IA) practice.  In late November 2019, NZAIA, in partnership with the Secretariat for the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), held a conference in Auckland under the title Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: assessing the impacts. The topic recognised the importance of climate change in the political arena in recent years in New Zealand and the wider Pacific region and the opportunity to apply IA to policy and planning.

This issue of Impact Connector presents a number of articles based on verbal and poster presentations at the conference.  They mainly deal with the situation from a New Zealand perspective, although the articles also include  wider geographical or thematic perspectives.  The conference had a significant Pacific component, which is the basis for a separate issue of Impact Connector,  produced with the support  of SPREP for the Pacific impact assessment and climate change communities.

Last year was an important one for New Zealand in terms of climate change strategy with the amendments to the Climate Change Response Act 2002.  One of the key changes to the Act was the establishment of a Climate Change Commission with two main functions. The first is to advise the Government on mitigating climate change and on climate change adaptation strategies, and the second is to monitor Government progress on emissions reduction and adaptation goals.  With respect to adaptation, the Commission has the responsibility for preparing a national climate change risk assessment which will then inform the development, by the Climate Change Minister, of a national adaptation plan.

NZAIA was, and remains, concerned that the emphasis on risk assessment in the amended legislation, and in the processes already occurring to meet its aims, overlooks the need for, and value of, impact assessment methods in the development of sound mitigation and adaptation measures.  In particular, we consider that the unintended consequences of both mitigation measures and adaptation plans could well be overlooked without more explicit recognition of the need to test emerging ideas using impact assessment methods.  

Risk assessment certainly makes sense in the context of recognising the differential geographical and social effects of climate change across the country and identifying priorities for adaptation planning. However, the emphasis on addressing risks in adaptation planning is likely to promote the search for cost effective responses to specific physical impacts (e.g. inundation). It does not in itself encourage more integrated, strategic thinking about possible adaptation responses to the effects of climate change, and in particular does not lead to exploring the wider implications of those responses for people, communities and the natural environment.  The amended Act does refer to impacts, mainly in the context of mitigating emissions, but it very much reflects the concept of “just transitions”, with its emphasis on recognising the economic impact of mitigation measures at the community level and the need to protect livelihoods, rather than wider and unintended impacts.

At the conference we asked questions to stimulate thinking and discussion:
  • do our current processes involve consideration of the wider, unintended consequences of mitigation and adaptation measures? 
  • what might some of the important consequences be (both positive and negative)?
  • how can impact assessment methods contribute to sound decision-making about climate change mitigation and adaptation? 

This issue of Impact Connector follows the broad order used in the conference, whereby more strategic themes were addressed in the early part of the programme, followed by more specific examples, and case studies.

James Whetu examines “Just Transitions”, a phrase and a concept commonly used in this country and overseas with respect to climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. It has a strong economic equity theme, but James asks what does the concept mean for Maori? In particular what might be the adverse impacts on Maori of adopting this approach without greater attention to its implications? 

Taking a wider geographical perspective, Tom Burkitt looks at the issue of Asian mega-cities: significant emitters of GHGs, and often highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but also holding the promise of contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation in positive ways if we approach those tasks in the right way—including strategic use of impact assessment methods. 

Related, but more focused, is Alistair Woodward’s warning that we cannot assume the pursuit of more liveable, low-carbon urban areas to mitigate climate change is without cost, especially in terms of health impacts.

The 2016 Kaikoura earthquake caused widespread damage in the rural sector and rural communities across North Canterbury and Marlborough. Mike Bennett and Nick Taylor discuss a major farmer-led programme, the Post-Quake Farming Project (PQFP), to support recovery in the farming sector. They describe how impact assessment is being used at a strategic level, but also as a participatory tool at the community level to help design and manage change. An important part of the programme is to help farming communities develop resilience in the face of potential future challenges, especially climate change, and adapt farming systems to include carbon credits and enhanced biodiversity.

Willie Smith and Nathan Heath look at the reasons why the Government’s One Billion Trees programme—partly climate mitigation through carbon sequestration, partly regional development—has proved so contentious at the community level in a district on the east coast of North Island. A key factor is how the impacts of the programme are perceived by different stakeholders in the community, and by local Maori.

Another case study  is the ecological restoration project on Banks Peninsula, near Christchurch on South Island. Mark Christensen describes a project that addresses the loss of biodiversity in the landscape and at the same time contributes to climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration.  Yet, even a project of this kind can potentially have adverse impacts on others; impact assessment can play a role, but how can it be institutionalised in non-statutory contexts?  

We hope you enjoy the articles and use them to enhance IA practice. Note that the Powerpoint slides for each original presentation are available here. And do look at the Pacific issue of Impact Connector that contains articles based on papers and posters from the same conference, but which addressed Pacific topics. 
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  • Home
    • Environmental Impact Assessment
    • Social Impact Assessment
    • Strategic Environmental Assessment
    • Community & Stakeholder Engagement
    • Management, Monitoring and Reporting
  • About Us
    • Core Group >
      • Core Group Meeting Minutes
    • Our Partners and Affiliates
    • AGMs
    • Constitution changes 2025
    • Ethics
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    • Sign Up for NZAIA Membership
    • 2025 Calendar Year Membership Subscription Renewal
  • Conferences
    • Conference 2024 >
      • Conference Programme 2024
      • Proceedings 2024
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      • Conference 2023 >
        • Pacific Day 2023
        • 2023 Students
      • 2022 - Wellbeing, Sustainability and Impact Assessment: towards more integrated policy-making >
        • Posters
        • 2022 Students
      • 2021 - Social Impact Assessment >
        • Posters
        • 2021 Students
      • 2019 - Climate Change >
        • Posters
        • 2019 Students
        • Conference Photos
        • Contact List
      • 2018 - Regional Development
      • 2016 - Strategic Environmental Assessment
      • 2015 - Where to for Impact Assessment?
      • 2014 - Transport Infrastructure
      • 2013 Fresh Water Management
      • 2012 - Mineral Extraction
    • Sign up for occasional updates from NZAIA
  • Impact Connector
    • Issue #16 SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing >
      • SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing: Intro
      • The drivers and agents of on-farm change in Aotearoa New Zealand
      • Social-ecological assessment for remote and island communities
      • The Impact of Substandard Rural Housing on Resilience and Wellbeing in Te Tai Tokerau
      • Success factors for planning regeneration in rural areas
    • Issue #15 Economic methods and Impact Assessment >
      • Economic methods in impact assessment: an introduction
      • The Nature of Economic Analysis for Resource Management
      • The State-of-the-Art and Prospects: Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services in Environmental Impact Assessment
      • Economic impact assessment and regional development: reflections on Queensland mining impacts
      • Fonterra’s policy on economic incentives for promoting sustainable farming practices
    • Issue #14 Impact assessment for infrastructure development >
      • Impact assessment for infrastructure development - an introduction
      • Place Matters: The importance of geographic assessment of areas of influence in understanding the social effects of large-scale transport investment in Wellington
      • Unplanned Consequences? New Zealand's experiment with urban (un)planning and infrastructure implications
      • Reflections on infrastructure, Town and Country planning and intimations of SIA in the late 1970s and early 1980s
      • SIA guidance for infrastructure and economic development projects
      • Scoping in impact assessments for infrastructure projects: Reflections on South African experiences
      • Impact Assessment for Pacific Island Infrastructure
    • Issue #13 Health impact assessment: practice issues >
      • Introduction to health impact assessment: practice issues
      • International Health Impact Assessment – a personal view
      • Use of Health Impact Assessment to develop climate change adaptation plans for health
      • An integrated approach to assessing health impacts
      • Assessing the health and social impacts of transport policies and projects
      • Whither HIA in New Zealand….or just wither?
    • Issue #12 Risk Assessment: Case Studies and Approaches >
      • Introduction
      • Risk Assessment and Impact Assessment : A perspective from Victoria, Australia
      • The New and Adaptive Paradigm Needed to Manage Rising Coastal Risks
      • Reflections on Using Risk Assessments in Understanding Climate Change Adaptation Needs in Te Taitokerau Northland
      • Values-Based Impact Assessment and Emergency Management
      • Certainty about Communicating Uncertainty: Assessment of Flood Loss and Damage
      • Improving Understanding of Rockfall Geohazard Risk in New Zealand
      • Normalised New Zealand Natural Disaster Insurance Losses: 1968-2019
      • Houston, We Have a Problem - Seamless Integration of Weather and Climate Forecast for Community Resilience
      • Innovating with Online Data to Understand Risk and Impact in a Data Poor Environment
    • Impact Connector #11 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Impact Assessment: views from the Pacific >
      • Introduction
      • Climate change adaptation and mitigation, impact assessment, and decision-making: a Pacific perspective
      • Climate adaptation and impact assessment in the Pacific: overview of SPREP-sponsored presentations
      • Land and Sea: Integrated Assessment of the Temaiku Land and Urban Development Project in Kiribati
      • Strategic Environmental Assessment: Rising to the SDG Challenge
      • Coastal Engineering for Climate Change Resilience in Eastern Tongatapu, Tonga
      • Climate-induced Migration in the Pacific: The Role of New Zealand
    • Impact Connector #10 Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >
      • Introduction
      • Is a “just transition” possible for Māori?
      • Adapting to Climate Change on Scale: Addressing the Challenge and Understanding the Impacts of Asia Mega-Cities
      • How responding to climate change might affect health, for better or for worse
      • Kanuka, Kereru and carbon capture - Assessing the effects of a programme taking a fresh look at the hill and high country land resource
      • Wairoa: Community perceptions of increased afforestation
      • Te Kākahu Kahukura Ecological Restoration project: A story within a story
    • Issue #9 Impacts of Covid-19 >
      • Introduction to Impact Connector Issue 9 – Impact assessment and Covid 19
      • Covid-19 fast-track consenting: climate change legacy key to success
      • Tourism – the long haul ahead
      • Making sense of the impact of Covid-19: planning, politics, and the public good
    • Issue #8 Social Impact Assessment >
      • Challenges for Social Impact Assessment in New Zealand: looking backwards and looking forwards
      • Insights from the eighties: early Social Impact Assessment reports on rural community dynamics
      • Impact Assessment and the Capitals Framework: A Systems-based Approach to Understanding and Evaluating Wellbeing
      • Building resilience in Rural Communities – a focus on mobile population groups
      • Assessing the Impacts of a New Cycle Trail: A Fieldnote
      • The challenges of a new biodiversity strategy for social impact assessment (SIA)
      • “Say goodbye to traffic”? The role of SIA in establishing whether ‘air taxis’ are the logical next step in the evolution of transportation
    • Issue #7 Ecological Impact Assessment >
      • The future of Ecological Impact Assessment in New Zealand
      • Ecological impact assessment and roading projects
      • EcIA and the Resource Management Act
      • Professional Practice and implementation of EcIA
      • EcIA in the Marine Environment
    • Issue #6 Landscape Assessment >
      • Introduction
      • Lives and landscapes: who cares, what about, and does it matter?
      • Regional Landscape Inconsistency
      • Landscape management in the new world order
      • Landscape assessment and the Environment Court
      • Natural character assessments and provisions in a coastal environment
      • The Assessment and Management of Amenity
      • The rise of the THIMBY
      • Landscape - Is there a common understanding of the Common?
    • Issue #5 Cultural Impact Assessment >
      • Introduction
      • Potential of Cultural Impact Assessment
      • The Mitigation Dilemma
      • CIA and decision-making
      • Insights and observations on CIA
      • Achieving sustainability through CIA
      • CIA - Enhancing or diminishing mauri?
      • Strategic Indigenous Impact Assessment?
    • Issue #4 Marine Environment >
      • Introduction
      • Iwi, Impact Assessment and Marine Environment
      • Sea-Bed Mining Application in Taranaki
      • The wreck of the MV Rena
      • High Court RMA Controls on Fishing
      • Initiatives in the Pacific Islands
      • SEA in an NZ context
    • Issue #3 Strategic Environmental Assessment
    • Issue #2
    • Issue #1
  • Resources
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    • Natural Systems >
      • Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services
      • Agriculture & Food Systems
      • Water Management
    • Social Impact Assessment
    • Health Impact Assessment >
      • Climate Change & Health
      • Air Quality Impact Assessment
    • Cumulative Impact Assessment
    • Community and Stakeholder Engagement
    • Indigenous Peoples
    • Climate Change and Disaster Risk Resilience >
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