As New Zealand’s North Island continues to reel from the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle, the country’s climate change minister, James Shaw, has issued a scathing rebuke of Parliament’s past inaction on the climate crisis.
Standing before the House, Shaw’s voice was laced with a mix of sadness and anger as he addressed the “lost decades” of bickering over the very real and present threat of climate change. “I struggle to find words to express what I’m thinking and feeling about this particular crisis,” he said. “We’ve wasted decades arguing over whether climate change is real or not, whether it’s caused by humans or not, whether it’s bad or not. And now we’re left to deal with the consequences.”
The scale of the destruction is still unfolding, with entire regions cut off from basic services and neighborhoods submerged in floodwaters. But Shaw is unequivocal in his attribution of the disaster to the climate crisis. “This is a climate change-related event,” he said. “The severity of it, of course, made worse by the fact that our global temperatures have already increased by 1.1 degrees.”
The co-leader of the Green party implored Parliament to stop making excuses for inaction and to start taking immediate action to address the crisis. “We can’t put our heads in the sand when the beach is flooding,” he said. “We must act now.”
Scientists have long predicted that global heating would lead to more frequent and intense weather events, and New Zealand is bearing the brunt of that reality. The North Island has experienced unprecedented rainfall this summer, with Auckland receiving 48% of its annual rainfall in just 45 days. The cyclone comes just two weeks after record rainfall caused devastating flooding in Auckland and Northland, killing four people and damaging thousands of homes.
Cyclone Gabrielle AftermathIn a televised address, Shaw quoted Winston Churchill, saying, “The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” He went on to suggest innovative solutions, such as allowing those receiving insurance payments to rebuild their homes in safer locations.
But Shaw cautioned against prioritizing short-term fixes over long-term emission reductions. “There will be a certain crowd who say… let’s give up on stopping climate change and its focus entirely on responding to the effects of climate change and I cannot state enough what a catastrophic mistake that would be,” he said. “Because every tenth of a degree of warming increases the frequency and the severity of these events.”
As the country struggles to come to terms with the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, Shaw’s words serve as a stark reminder of the urgent need for collective action to address the climate crisis.