Environment Southland councillor and Southland Regional Climate Change Working Group co-chairman Phil Morrison described his work as a meaningful pathway forward for climate action planning in the Southland region.
Through the working group, he helps to plan how local government and others in the community will respond to climate events, presenting stages of plans to councils around the region.
Mr Morrison said there were five key points important to him as a ‘‘guiding constellation" in his work, providing a direction for how the group interacted and planned.
"The first one is collaboration for the betterment of communities, the second one is being proactive to the greatest possible degree.
"The third one is generate science-guided recommendations.
‘‘The fourth is cost-sensitive recommendations and the final one, which I think shines the brightest, is empowering local democracy."
When the five were put together, Mr Morrison said it created an entirely voluntary framework for councils to empower and help their communities through a challenging issue like climate change — not a forced hand.
"We’re not looking to impose; it’s up to each council to to consider whether that's appropriate or not and then make their decision as to whether they accept that or otherwise.
"This defines a process that enables climate change planning, for action to occur, within a system that aligns with local democratic process in long-term plans," he said.
At Gore District Council meeting earlier in the month, the first showing of their ‘‘stage two" for the group, Mr Morrison found considerable pushback against his proposal from councillors.
In the end, four voted against even receiving the report, but Mr Morrison said there was no overarching climate denial in Southland, citing a survey conducted a few years ago by the group.
"We wanted to get a feel for Southland, what the resistances and range of concerns over climate change were out there.
"What we found was there were a subset of the community who didn’t, you know, buy into the climate change narrative.
"But what was reassuring was that was only around 13% of the population," he said.
Mr Morrison said he understood where some of the pushback was coming from, as in the past the government had put forward unpopular and inadvisable schemes to reduce carbon.
But, he said this was something entirely different.
"The other thing I would observe is, communities are getting tired of solutions being imposed on them through central authority.
‘‘So I do wonder when people hear climate change as a subject, they’re assuming there will be more solutions imposed on their communities without their input."
He said he suspected that was the source of their resistance.
‘‘This isn’t what we’re proposing.
‘‘We're proposing a system that enables conversations with communities, those most affected or impacted by climate change, saying ‘OK, well, so what do we do?"’
Mr Morrison said climate change is not something we can turn a blind eye to, and it’s best to get a plan in early rather than later.
‘‘It would be wonderful if we could [ignore climate change].
‘‘But I think it’s prudent to take a precautionary approach on this."
