A senior climate scientist says New Zealand may be relatively insulated from the extremities of future weather changes, but is urging the government to look at its implications, including the possibility of huge immigration numbers.<\/p>\n
Victoria University’s senior climate scientist, Professor James Renwick, told\u00a0Afternoons<\/i>\u00a0New Zealand’s temperate climate meant the country would not be affected as intensely by global warming and associated chaotic weather patterns as other nations, including neighbours Australia.<\/p>\n
However, the author of new book\u00a0Under the Weather A Future Forecast for New Zealand\u00a0<\/i>warned Aotearoa still faced climate chaos caused by out-of-control carbon emissions.<\/p>\n
Cyclone Gabrielle, which wrecked havoc across the North Island earlier this year, was a recent example, he said.<\/p>\n
“I think it will take longer for the extremes of climate change to really be felt here, compared to other countries that are more exposed to those extremes,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Australia’s a good example of that. It’s closer to the equator, it’s hotter, it’s drier. And so you don’t have to push the climate there so hard to get extremes that are difficult to adapt to, such as the big fires that hit a couple of summers ago.<\/p>\n
“New Zealand is less likely to see those extremes so quickly. So we will be I think, a bit of an oasis region in terms of climate change for a while. But if you push the climate hard enough, it’ll become pretty difficult to deal with even here. But, assuming that we do get on top of emissions reductions soon, this country may well, comparatively speaking, be doing all right.”<\/p>\n
Renwick, however, said this was not necessarily all good news for the country, as it operated in a global community and would face external pressures.<\/p>\n
“A lot of people around the world are going to look at this country and think, ‘oh, would be quite a good place to go to avoid some of these extreme events we’re experiencing where I live’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A senior climate scientist says New Zealand may be relatively insulated from the extremities of future weather changes, but is urging the government to look at its implications, including the possibility of huge immigration numbers. Victoria University’s senior climate scientist, Professor James Renwick, told\u00a0Afternoons\u00a0New Zealand’s temperate climate meant the country would not be affected as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5339,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions\/5339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}