'We're not going to be sledgehammered into spending money internationally on climate change. That's not putting New Zealand first.' Shane Jones, Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Resources. 20 December, 2025.
WHAT HAPPENED on Mt Maunganu last week was not an isolated freak event. It was not the result of a 'one in a hundred year' weather event. It was not an act of nature in the old sense of the phrase. It was the predictable, scientifically documented, repeatedly warned-about consequence of a warming climate colliding with the complacency of a political establishment that has spent decades failing to treat climate change as the existential threat that it is.
Extreme weather is no longer rare. It is no longer surprising. It is no longer something we can describe as 'unprecedented' with a straight face. It is happening more often because the planet is hotter, the atmosphere holds more moisture, and storms are becoming more violent. We were told this would be the 'new normal.' Now we are living inside it, and it ain't much fun.
And yet, even as the evidence piles up in the form of destroyed homes, broken infrastructure, and lost lives, successive governments—Labour and National alike—have failed to respond with the urgency the crisis demands. Both have governed as if climate change were a policy area to be managed, not a structural threat to the country’s safety, economy, and future. Both have reassured the public that incrementalism would be enough. Both have treated emissions reduction as something to be balanced against 'economic competitiveness,' as though the economy will matter much on a planet that is literally burning, flooding, and collapsing.
As writer and activist Naomi Klein wrote nearly a decade ago: ''the denigration of collective action and veneration of the profit motive has infiltrated virtually every government on the planet, every media organisation, every university, our very souls.'
The current government has taken the veneration of the profit motive to another level. Instead of accelerating climate action, it is backtracking on commitments, weakening targets, and opening the door—wide—to the fossil fuel industry. At precisely the moment when the world needs to be winding down oil and gas extraction, New Zealand is signalling that it is open for business. The message is unmistakable: short-term profit matters more than long-term survival. As Bryce Edwards notes '... when Christopher Luxon gave his State of the Nation speech, “climate change” did not rate a single mention, while “economy” or “economic” appeared 18 times.'
This is not just a policy failure. It is a moral failure. Climate change is not an abstraction. It is not a future scenario. It is a killer, and it has already taken lives here. Every extreme weather event that destroys a community is a reminder that political decisions have consequences measured not in polling numbers but in funerals. When a government weakens climate policy, it is not simply adjusting a spreadsheet. It is increasing the likelihood that more families will receive the kind of phone call no one should ever have to get.
Some might suggest that this is an unfortunate exaggeration. It is not. A Lancet study published last year concluded that the failure to adequately tackle climate charge adequately has already contributed to millions of avoidable deaths. The report put figures on some of the most deadly consequences: 546,000 people died each year between 2012 and 2021 because of exposure to heat – a massive increase on figures from the 1990s – and toxic fumes from wildfires killed a record 154,000 in 2024.
The tragedy on Mt Maunganui should be a turning point, but it won't be. Instead, it risks becoming another entry in a long list of disasters that politicians mourn publicly and ignore privately. The Prime Minister says the nation is 'heavy with grief' after this 'profound tragedy.' But grief without responsibility is just sentiment. And sentiment without action is political theatre.
The cycle is all too familiar: expressions of sorrow, promises to learn lessons, and then a swift return to business as usual. But business as usual is precisely what got us here. The 'new normal' is not a natural phenomenon; it is a political choice.
New Zealand likes to imagine itself as a clean, green nation. That myth has been convenient, comforting, and profitable. But it is also a lie. A country that expands fossil fuel exploration while the climate crisis accelerates cannot claim environmental leadership. A country that treats climate adaptation as an afterthought cannot pretend to be prepared. And, certainly, a country that allows its most vulnerable communities to bear the brunt of storms, floods, and landslides cannot call itself fair.
We need a different kind of politics—one that treats climate change as the defining issue of our time, not a line item in a coalition agreement. That means massive investment in public transport, renewable energy, and resilient infrastructure. It means ending fossil fuel exploration, not expanding it. It means confronting the industries that profit from pollution instead of courting them. And it means acknowledging that the cost of inaction will always be higher than the cost of action.
Most of all, it means telling the truth. The truth is that climate change is here. The truth is that it is deadly. The truth is that every delay, every compromise, every concession to the fossil fuel lobby increases the danger we all face. And the truth is that political leaders who refuse to act decisively are not protecting the country—they are endangering it.
The grief people are feeling today is real. But grief is not enough. It must become anger, and anger must become action. Because unless we change course, the tragedies we mourn today will not be the last. They will be just the beginning.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated.