Water Carved Our Landscape Now it Risks Lives
New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay is known for its fine wine, but many of the region’s vineyards are now under water, along with homes and roads in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, Hilary Whiteman reports…
Tag Archives: Climate Change
US TV Presenter Visits Our Shrinking Glaciers
New Zealand is full of stunning, natural beauty and home to nearly 3000 glaciers, which are huge tourist destinations. But the glaciers are quickly vanishing due to rising temperatures, ABC News reports. Good Morning…
How the World’s Most Spongy City Tackles Floods
Auckland was recently named the most spongy global city in a report by multinational architecture and design firm Arup, thanks to its geography, soil type, and urban design – but experts warn it may…
GAIT’s Saurav Bansal Using AI in Real-Time Carbon Measurement
New start-up GAIT Global claims its technology, using artificial intelligence and spatial data, is the only real-time measure of carbon in the atmosphere and will help catalyse the world’s efforts in combating climate change….
Is NZ the Best Place to Survive Global Collapse?
Two English researchers have found that New Zealand is best poised to stay up and running as climate change continues to wreak global havoc, Heather Murphy writes for The New York Times, but other…
Older New Zealanders Join Climate Change Fight
On his early morning bike rides to school, David Yockney would deliberately seek out the crunch and splash of the ice-hardened puddles. It was a winter joy he loved, and one he took for…
Climate Change Graphics Made Simple by John Lang
New Zealander John Lang has just finished an unenviable task: taking a jargon-packed, number-heavy report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and turning it into a graphic the average person might read,…
New Zealand’s Glaciers Testament to Climate Change
New research has found extreme melting of New Zealand’s glaciers in 2018 was at least ten times more likely due to human-caused global heating, Graham Readfearn reports for The Guardian. Twice a year, glaciologist Lauren…
James Shaw on Our Economic Climate Post-COVID-19
Cheap, renewable electricity is one way of reviving economies and preserving New Zealand’s natural environment, Climate Change Minister and co-leader of the Green Party James Shaw argues in an opinion piece for The Guardian. Shaw…
Activist Richard McLachlan Talks Tough on Climate
Since June, activist New Zealander Richard McLachlan, 68, regularly gives talks on the New York subway, warning riders “we are sleepwalking into a catastrophe”. McLachlan is a member of Extinction Rebellion, an environmental action…
Climate Change A Critical Issue – NZ US Ambassador
Climate change is a critical issue for New Zealand and the Pacific island region as a whole given its exposure to extreme weather events, says New Zealand’s ambassador to the United States Rosemary Banks,…
Virgin CEO Josh Bayliss Reflects on Climate Action
New Zealand-born Josh Bayliss, CEO of multi-billion-pound brand the Virgin Group, which holds a stake in Virgin Atlantic, discusses with BusinessGreen journalist Michael Holder how corporates should respond to consumer outcry over climate change. There…
Military Braces for Climate Change Battle
The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) has identified climate change as one of its biggest security challenges, warning that responding to global warming will increasingly stretch its resources. The NZDF said the impact of climate…
Jacinda Ardern Launches New “Green Fund”
“New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a new NZ$100 million green investment fund on Wednesday, aimed at boosting private-sector participation in a campaign to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050,” writes Charlotte…
Jacinda Ardern Gives Maiden Speech at the UN
The collapse of multilateralism would be “catastrophic,” Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, said in her first speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Opening her address with a Māori salutation,
Scientists Are Breeding Low-Emission Sheep
“In a bid to tackle climate change, scientists have teamed up with New Zealand farmers to try and make sheep a little less gassy,” writes Joe Pinkstone in an article for the
Country Swelters Through Hottest Ever Month
January was the hottest month ever recorded in New Zealand, according to figures released by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), and experts say climate change is one factor. The heat has…
Climate Refugees to Be Welcomed in New Zealand
New Zealand has announced it will create a special refugee visa for Pacific Islanders displaced by rising seas. The country says it is preparing for the possibility of a larger evacuation of island residents…
NZ’s Winter Shorter by a Month over 100 Years
Studies by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) show that winter has contracted equally at its beginning and end. Winter has gotten shorter by a month over the last 100 years,…
Our Yellow-Eyed Penguins in Trouble
According to a new study, New Zealand’s iconic yellow-eyed penguin (hoiho) may be locally extinct by 2043, Kendra Pierre-Louis writes for Popular Science. The study, published in the journal PeerJ, reports…
Face of Climate Change – Helen Clark
Helen Clark, Head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and former Prime Minister of New Zealand was featured in an article on the Deutsche Welle as one of the faces…
New Zealand Glaciers Ebb and Tour Guides Play Catch-Up
Climate change is having uneven economic effects on tourism operators like Fox Glacier Guiding and Franz Josef Glacier Guides whose businesses depend on ice and snow, the New York Times reports. Guided glacier hiking began…
Green MP Apologies for NZ Climate Change Failure
New Zealand Green MP Kennedy Graham has apologised to Pacific leaders on behalf of New Zealanders who disagreed with their government’s decision not to sign the Copenhagen Agreement on reducing carbon emissions and alleviating…
NZ Faces Climate Change Disasters Influx
Climate change is real, and its impact on small Pacific states will be severe. So severe that New Zealand and Australia need to prepare now for an influx of Pacific Island peoples fleeing from…
New Zealand suffers ‘most widespread’ drought in 30 years
New Zealand is suffering its most widespread drought in 30 years. Climate scientists are warning that New Zealand may need to change its approach to farming as a result, according to the Washington Post….
Greener Pastures
Retailers in Britain should sell New Zealand-produced lamb if they want to help protect the environment, experts claim in a report called ‘Climate Change and Food Systems’. The suggestion, likely to outrage British farmers,…
Looking at the Cold Hard Facts
In a tour de force of glacial geology, Columbia University’s Dr Aaron Putnam and his collaborators have been reconstructing much of the Holocene history of a group of mountain glaciers in New Zealand. Their…
Sedimentary Strata Studied
Waipaoa River was recently visited by a team of international scientists gathering data for research into how materials from land are moved through and accumulated in the ocean and, in particular, how floods carry…
Attention to Change
Former prime minister Helen Clark, now head of the United Nation’s Development Agency, was recently at Sydney’s Lowy Institute calling for climate change to be put at the centre of international development strategies. In…
Auckland Calling
New Zealand could be one of the world’s last havens as climate change fundamentally changes the planet according to the scientist and creator of the Gaia theory James Lovelock, and for this reason, on…
Switched Off for Change
New Zealand was one of the first countries to switch of its power for this year’s Earth Hour event aimed at highlighting environmental problems caused by excessive use of energy. Forty-four New Zealand cities,…
Hot competition
Blenheim-based company Carbonscape — one of only five companies to make the shortlist in the Financial Times global Climate Change Challenge — makes charcoal from biomass for the sequestration of carbon using industrial microwaves….
Drilling For Knowledge
Victoria University’s Tim Naish is one of a hundred scientists from 40 different countries working on a map of climate change. The Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) is digging deep below the Ross Ice Shelf to determine…
Renewing Friendships, Broadening Horizons
Helen Clark was the first foreign leader to meet with Kevin Rudd in his new role as Australian prime minister. The pair met for a casual lunch at Rudd’s Brisbane home, where they discussed climate change ahead…
Air NZ in Pioneering Partnership
Air New Zealand has signed an agreement with airplane maker Boeing and engine maker Rolls-Royce to collaborate on projects to make commercial aviation more environmentally sustainable. Stage one of the plan will see the first trial flight…
NZ Sets Pace on Climate Change
A recent Guardian op-ed hailed NZ as “the new climate change pioneer”, after the unveiling of an ambitious new environmental plan by the NZ government. The plan’s stated targets include generating 90% of the country’s electricity from…
NZ Commits to Climate Change Cause
NZ will introduce a carbon trading scheme next year in a bid to cap greenhouse gas emissions at the lowest possible cost to the economy. Under the plan, every industry will be allocated an agreed level…
Silver Lining to Climate Change Cloud
NZ has the potential to adapt to climate change more effectively than its neighbours, according to the government and global warming experts. Despite being home to just 0.06 per cent of the world’s population, NZ produces 0.2…
Heading the Catalogue of Life
Dr David Penman has been elected chair of the governing board of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, an international organization working to develop the world’s first free mega-database of all living organisms. The internet resource, which will help…
Poles Apart, Like Minded
The NZ and Austrian governments have formally agreed to cooperate on the implementation of emission reduction projects, in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol. “NZ’s pro-active, pro-business approach to climate change is good news for the economy and…
Warning Heard Around the Globe
Top Kiwi scientist, Dr Peter Barrett, has warned the world “if we continue our present growth path, we are facing extinction … Not in millions of years, or even millennia, but by the end of this…
Eco-powering Taranaki
Small-scale mixed-source energy generation at Pioneer Village “brings a little closer the prospect of freeing consumers forever from rising power bills and the guilt of contributing to pollution and climate change.”
Climate Change Challenge
“The climate models are only useful if the science is correct, and so far they have simply not been validated. They predict far more temperature increase in the lower atmosphere than satellites are measuring,” says Auckland University…
Edge Cracks and the Icebergs Breaketh
As record-breaking icebergs are breaking off the edges of Antarctica, Dr. Dean Peterson, science strategy manager at the New Zealand Antarctic Institute, is leading research (with far ranging implications for the global climate) to find out more…
