Inadequacy Revealed and the Transition to Adaptation as Risk Management in New Zealand

Abstract

Current decision-making frameworks in New Zealand have been revealed as inadequate for enabling changing and uncertain risks from climate change to be addressed. We discuss how practice under the existing planning framework has exposed people and assets to greater risk, and the challenges in the transition taking place in New Zealand toward an anticipatory adaptive approach. We chart the course of this transition and suggest how current law and practice can support and embed an adaptive direction within the institutional reforms underway for more effective climate risk management.