It is just one generation away. By about 2050, the world could (on average) be two degrees hotter than pre-industrial times.
That’s the growing consensus of well-informed research organisations such as the Potsdam Institute. Have a look at their Carbon Clock, a visualisation of how much carbon dioxide we can afford to release before we reach 1.5 degrees (about three years) and the even more dangerous level of two degrees (about 20 years).
We are in this situation because, despite their promises at the Paris Agreement in 2015, too many countries are failing to live up to their climate commitments. The UN Environment Programme’s latest report explains how recent backtracking by major emitters means that we are seriously off target for holding global temperatures below the relatively safe level of 1.5 degrees.
Yet even at the current global average of about 1.4 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, Aotearoa New Zealand is feeling the bite of climate change.
Damaging storms used to occur about once a month. Now they are happening about once a week on average, says Jo Hendy, chief executive of the Climate Change Commission. We are becoming all too familiar with headlines about slips, floods, power outages, damaged homes, destroyed businesses and, sadly, loss of life.
The commission’s Climate Change Risk Assessment, released earlier this month, identifies the most significant risks Aotearoa will face as climate impacts ramp up. They group these into four clusters of risk.
Infrastructure is one. Buildings, water systems, road and rail networks will be increasingly subject to damage.
Natural systems are another. Climate stresses such as droughts, overheating and flooding will harm plants, animals and their ecosystems. Living things that used to thrive in your locality may struggle or disappear altogether. Native biodiversity will be at risk. So too will businesses such as forestry, agriculture and horticulture that fail to anticipate and adjust.
There are growing risks to people and communities. As we’re already seeing with major storm events, social and community wellbeing are affected by both the immediate destructive effects and the subsequent struggle to rebuild their lives.
Māori face additional impacts because climate change compounds existing inequities and has direct effects on culture and identity. Māori communities nevertheless continue to provide leadership when there are major climate disruptions, often feeding, housing and caring for entire communities at marae.
The fourth cluster isn’t as visible as the other risks but underpins them all. Governance is about how decisions about climate resilience are made, who makes them, how it is funded, and how effectively it is delivered. For example, if we keep developing new suburbs in flood-prone areas, there will be more damage to houses, roads and water systems, and more direct risks to people and communities. And yet, unbelievably, this is still happening. Good governance?
So, a lot to take in. The bottom line of the Climate Change Risk Assessment is that we need to be preparing for future conditions that will be far from ‘‘normal’’. And currently we are not.
What the report doesn’t highlight is that Aotearoa New Zealand is one of the lucky countries. Our location in southern oceans mitigates many of the more severe outcomes of global heating that will be experienced across the Pacific islands, the Arctic and Antarctic, and in continents such as Africa, Asia and North and South America.
Impacts will include decreases in food production and freshwater supplies, loss of land due to sea-level rise, and massive economic, health and social costs from extreme heating and storms.
Simply taking an economic lens, the long-term implications are sobering. For example, Exeter University and the UK’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (professionals who assess the financial cost of risk) reported in 2025 that the global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP by 2070-2090 from the catastrophic shocks of climate change, unless immediate action is taken by political leaders to avert this.
While Aotearoa may be one of the ‘‘lucky ones’’ when it comes to climate impacts, we won’t be exempt from what is happening at a global scale. As a nation that relies heavily on global trade and supply chains, we need to prepare for a future of significant destabilisation as we move (inexorably, it now appears) towards 2 degrees and beyond.
I didn’t set out to write something as sobering as this, but sometimes it is important to point out the stark reality. Caught up in the bombardment of clickbait about AI, trillionaire tech bros, Trump and the Kardashians it is easy to overlook the second-by-second increments in greenhouse gases that are (invisibly but more powerfully) shaping our future.
As Gwynne Dyer wrote in his April column in the ODT, we are right to worry about the wars that fill the headlines, but we need to keep a sense of proportion. Climate change is what really matters.
Next time, I promise, my column will be more positive. We can thrive beyond 2 degrees if we accept that business-as-usual is no longer possible.
• Janet Stephenson is a research professor at the Centre for Sustainability Research Kā Rakahou o te Ao Tūroa at the University of Otago Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, and a member of He Kaupapa Hononga Otago’s Climate Change Research Network.
