But I am very aware of the moment we’re in — and what we are leaving for our children.
It’s no secret that things are heating up. That’s been made abundantly clear through an out-of-control fire in the Tongariro National Park, extreme winds damaging infrastructure and power outages across Southland and parts of South Otago and in June’s heavy rain and flooding resulting in a state of emergency for the Tasman, Nelson and Marlborough Districts.
The breakdown in our climate system results in increased flood and storm frequency and more extreme weather events like the intense rainfall and wind events that we’ve been experiencing around the motu. Other emerging, but slower, impacts like sea-level rise simply compound the challenges.
It’s also clear that the climate crisis is a result of humanity’s three-centuries-long use of fossil fuels which has resulted in skyrocketing greenhouse gas emissions and global heating.
However, we’ve also developed many of the systems and knowledge that can move us away from dependence on fossil fuels and reduce risk and harm.
The greatest challenge now is social: building the collective will to take action and transition to a safer, more planet-friendly future.
It’s not a lack of imagination that is stopping us, it’s simply a lack of political will. Sadly, no one is holding out much hope from Cop30 in Brazil this month. Our own government has been doing everything it can to pour fuel on the climate fire — from opening up oil and gas exploration, to fast-tracking coal mines and sea-bed mining, to weakening methane targets. It feels like climate denial on steroids just as we’re experiencing more extreme climate impacts.
I want to be clear — we have all we need here in Aotearoa to live well without costing the earth. Instead of importing $10 billion of fossil fuels every year, we could replace the fossils with electrons from a fully renewable energy system powering our homes, our transport system and our industry. Imagine: quieter streets, lower power costs, meaningful local jobs. Of course, a fully renewable energy system still needs poles and wires to move the electrons around and these are vulnerable to extreme weather events. But we can build greater resilience as well with batteries at our homes and businesses and enabling vehicle-to-grid so that electric vehicles can function as mobile batteries and feed back into the local grid, business, or household.
Part of the answer is in developing distributed energy resources — solar and batteries for homes and businesses, wind power for communities and flexible two-way flow in our local grid — to help our communities bounce back after extreme events and build resilience in our grid.
Local area energy planning can identify the most effective route to zero carbon emissions and identify clean energy projects, leading to effective action.
Alongside this, investing in jobs for nature will enable the restoration of our special places with birdsong and native bush. I have had the privilege of visiting many communities and people around the motu who are taking action and demonstrating what’s possible. From farmers who are restoring native bush and increasing biodiversity, to communities electrifying their homes and transport, to iwi and hapu who are developing adaptation plans, to local authorities investing in climate solutions. Again, we have all we need, we just need to use it. That starts with our government.
"The time has come to say fair’s fair, to pay the rent now, to pay our share," as Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil sang in 1987.
Scott Willis is a Dunedin-based Green Party MP. Each week in this column writers address issues of sustainability.
