Voices for the Pacific: Global insights

Speakers

Richard Busby, Judy Lawrence

Introduction and background

Richard Busby: Well, welcome everybody to the last episode of the Voices of the Pacific. Today we have a very special guest. We have Dr Judy Lawrence joining us today. Now, she has an amazing background and just some of it that I will let you guys all know now is that she is a Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institution at Victoria University.

She has a lot of expertise. Judy's career traverses land use management, natural hazards, climate change adaptation, and mitigation policy at central and local government. Prior to this, Judy has had a long career in senior public policy roles in government and now works at the interface between science and policy with central and local government on the climate change science and practice.

Her academic work focuses on tools for decision making under uncertainty in changing climate risks. For example, for sea level rise and flooding. Judy works with research teams and practitioners across New Zealand and internationally. Judy was a coordinating lead author for the recently released intergovernmental panel on climate change six assessment report on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability and she's New Zealand climate change commissioner.

She is a recipient of the prime minister's science prize with the Ice and Rising Seas team, a finalist in the 2019 [INAUDIBLE] Awards, and the 2020 Westpac woman of influence Awards. So quite a mouthful there, but thank you for joining us today Judy.

Judy Lawrence: [INAUDIBLE] and it's a pleasure to be here.

Richard Busby: Awesome, so I have kind of- you know was a bit of a mouthful- but do you want to kind of give us a little bit more of a personal introduction to yourself and your background? Especially motivations behind why you got into climate change.

Judy Lawrence: Yeah, thank you Richard and welcome everybody. Climate change is one of those issues that traverses every part of society and the economy and that makes it an interesting policy issue and problem. More particularly, it is an issue that demands a lot of attention across different levels in the government, at the community, in the private sector and so forth.

So coming from a background originally of a field scientist in geomorphology, I worked then into the policy field in government, working on problems to do with our land and our water, our soil and issues to do with forestry, mining, sector issues. And being a geographer by trade, what geographers do is try and join the dots between all of these spheres. And so that's what really pushes my buttons.

But more particularly the climate change issue is one where we have to look to the future. We have to also look at what's actually happening outside, out our windows. Things that are already affecting and disrupting communities. Whether they're at the coast, whether they're on the land, whether they are affecting our quality of water, the quantity we get, and our ability generally to live in this country.

And New Zealand is a highly pluvial country, which means there's a lot of water up there in the atmosphere and it's increasing and it will rain out, as we have seen in recent weeks. And as we've seen more frequently. So the whole problem that we're facing is that humans have gone over some thresholds in terms of their lifestyle. And we're a very carbon intensive society in New Zealand and also other countries are too. And that's had an incredible effect on the way in which the atmosphere has responded.

And so the area that I work in is looking at what those impacts might be and how we can actually address them. And address them in a way that's meaningful and can take the public along with us. So that's just a little introduction from whence I come Richard.

Richard Busby: Thank you for that. Just a follow-up question to that as well. You mentioned thresholds and we've kind of had a bit of conversation in the series about carbon emissions and fossil fuels. Are there any other thresholds that you think set a precedent into kind of the direction that we're going?

Judy Lawrence: Well I think if you take the impacts of climate change that come from those emissions that are up in the atmosphere, and will continue for some considerable time because it takes a lot to turn the bus around. Tou know there's a lot of inertia in the system and the impacts that are occurring as a result of that are really the sorts of things that you've raised Richard.

In terms of thresholds, what I'm talking about there is that society can only take so much and so many frequent floods, so many storms at the coast. And we've got Westport. You know, we've got [INAUDIBLE] up in the East Coast, Tokamaru Bay, which has been significantly affected several times. And it's been affected also by changes in land use.

And we now have little cover on the land and it's falling apart when we have these heavy rainfall events. We have droughts and we have you know farmers who are directly affected by these impacts. And so, when I say thresholds, globally we have crossed some thresholds and the Great Barrier Reef is one of them in our region, where marine heat waves and more acidification of the oceans which comes from the carbon dioxide that's absorbed into the ocean and changes into more acid water. And the warming of that water has created these sorts of problems.

And so, there is a very big doubt over whether or not the Great Barrier Reef will ever be like it was. It will turn into something else. And these are very important biodiversity hot spots for the world. And so if you think about the oceans, the atmosphere, the land, and the people all working together, there needs to be a buffer in there. Otherwise, we cross these thresholds, we have animals affecting our human health, which is what we have seen with Covid. Potentially bats living too close to people, people having destroyed their habitat, and occur and affecting us as humans.

And that's the sort of thing that we have to watch out for. And we have sort of beginning to overshoot the ability of the natural systems to adjust naturally, and also for humans to adjust naturally as well. And so, you know this notion of thresholds is an important one. We just can't continue to mine the globe and expect it not to kick back.

So that's what we're seeing with climate change. And the the two reports or three reports that are- four reports actually that have already come out in this cycle of the sixth assessment. And there's one more occurring as we speak, which will come out after this talk. But very close. Tuesday I think you'll hear the results of the third report. And the news is not great. But there is some hope and there is the ability to do something about that.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about how we all have to pay our part in doing that and I'll just demystify some of the issues around how policy can help in that process and the role of government.

People not satisfied with the effort of governments

Richard Busby: I think that would be, I guess, the focal point of today. We've had quite a few conversations about people not satisfied with the efforts of the government. We've also had a bit of a discussion about the multivariate equation that is climate change policy in conjunction with things like economic growth. Especially considering say some countries in the recent COP26 not really committing anything to, you know, the decarbonization or, you know, reducing fossil fuels. Places like India, the US, and Russia, etc. And they kind of claim that you know economic growth is a more, I guess, important topic for them.

And it must impact the way that these conversations go. From say in our homes, on our social media platforms, into the government and into legislation. Could you give us kind of an idea- I mean you made a great analogy about how, you know, as a geologist and a geographer you're connecting all these dots. Is that the same way that, I guess, you would approach climate change policy?

Judy Lawrence: Yeah. If only we did connect the dots. You know, that's at the hub of the matter. There are two things that are fundamental here. One is that we work in our own little bubbles. And that means we don't necessarily look out for the flow-on effects of what we do or the policies that are set.

And the other pretty fundamental thing in this is that, as humans, self-interest and short-term thinking have extremely dominant power over the ability to have effective policy on climate change. And that's been going on for a very, very long time. I've been involved in climate change work since as long as I can remember.

And when this issue first came to government by a previous parliamentary commissioner, Helen Hughes, the first one. And she put on the table this agenda. And that was picked up by government. And there have been successive policies, successive swings and roundabouts between different governments who have different motivations and priority.

And it wasn't really until there was a cross-party agreement forged between Labour and National and the Greens in the last election- or not the last but the one before- election cycle, that the legislation was put in place under the Climate Change Response Act — the Zero Carbon Act — which incidentally, was written initially by the young people of this country.

And I think that's fantastic. That sort of ability to be able to pull together the nuts and bolts of what the government agenda could be, placing it before the government and getting some sort of agreement. It's not exactly the same as what they did but it was the foundation for it. So that shows the power of youth and the power of people getting together to solve a problem and going through the channels to make it happen.

And what that has now done has attempted to — and I have to say attempted to because any agreement between major political parties are very fragile. And they also rely upon the public understanding the nature of the problem and the public playing a part in that process.

And I'll come to that in a minute because the legislation has provided a framework within which climate change can be dealt with in a more systematic way and where self-interested noise, and from different groups across all walks of life, can be brought together and heard and listened to and brought together into some sort of sensible way forward.

Okay. And so the Climate Change Response Act has enabled that to happen but it can't do it by itself. And so in setting that up it also set up the Climate Commission of which I'm a member. And that agency is an advisor only. It is independent and it has the ability to take up issues and report to government and Parliament.

And it functions as also a monitor in the system. So it can monitor the implementation of policy, whether it's once that policy is in place or before, and identify the need for new policy that would enable something to happen. That enables us to reduce our emissions and also adapt to climate change.

And one of the things that I found quite revealing through the process we've we've been through for two years is the way in which we have, I think, helped turn the tide about how we can have that conversation with the public. And it's all about listening in the first instance, finding out where the hot buttons are, finding out where we can resolve problems or whether someone else has to resolve that problem, and give advice to the government.

Now, the next part of the process is the tricky bit. Because you have a set of government departments who are all in this together. They all have elements of their remit that will make or break our emissions reduction. And so each of those departments all are answerable to a separate minister. Okay?

And therein lies some of the problem. And it's a coordination problem. And unless you have the government departments lined up — all the ducks lined up as I call it — you're going to get different streams of advice. And so different ministers will go in different directions.

But in a democracy that we have, the Westminster system, we have political parties who have representatives in Parliament. And we have a process of parliamentary democracy, which means that people can all have their say from their different points of view.

But we also have that cabinet. Now the cabinet is a collective group which has — well, each of the ministers have a collective responsibility to advance the interests of New Zealand. And that is the place where the effective governance occurs within a country. Like the Prime Minister [???], the ministers sit around the table, and they have a remit to act in the interests of New Zealand. Right?

And also Parliament does too but in a different way. It is part of the process in so far as they can look at all the interests across New Zealand in different groups and different interests and so forth. But unfortunately, up until now — and I have noticed it's been muted more recently but it will increase again — that this process of parliamentary democracy is about coming to and resolving those interests. And it is an imperfect system. But it's better than a directional system like we have in some other countries which run off a different type of governance. And it also enables the public to be close to the action.

And I come back to the people. Because we're very lucky in New Zealand. We can go and knock on the door of our MP. We can talk to our politicians very readily. And, in fact, my colleagues overseas are amazed how we can get things done relatively quickly when we put our mind to it. We had Covid. We found money. We supported people. Okay?

Now climate change is going to be Covid on steroids, as we say. So we are confident that, because we can do it with Covid, we can get climate change action in New Zealand. And it's going to be more difficult. But we do we need to work through the steps and the process of that through this rather organic and enemy-like, as you say, thing called government. Because we elect people to govern for us and that's the very nature of our democracy.

So it's really important that people understand that they do have access to power. And there are things that they can do that can support what the parliamentary system will deliver on climate change. But there are some bits of the puzzle missing.

And in climate change we have a devolved form of government as well. Which goes from the legislation and the functions and powers that are devolved, to some extent, to local agencies or different agencies of government. And I'm thinking here of local government. I'm thinking of agencies like Waka Kotahi, our roading and transport agencies, who have certain devolved functions like also watercare services in Auckland. And Wellington Water in in the Wellington region.

These are sort of semi-autonomous sort of agencies owned by local government, some of them. And some of them are effectively set up by central government. And they all have governance powers. And, because they've been set up as special purpose powers. And now they're struggling with this question of 'how do we deal with climate change?' And the front line is at local government.

Now they're not resourced to deal with it. And there are issues around... there's a sort of dance that goes on. And it's 'pass the parcel' is what I call it, which my kids used to use when they have birthday parties. And that is very like what has been happening with climate change. It's passing the parcel on to future generations. It's making the the making the parcel bigger to deal with by future generations.

And also, let's not kid ourselves, it's making the problem worse for us to deal with now. Because we are seeing the impacts of climate change already, particularly at sea level. The sea levels are rising and more rapidly in some places around Wellington, around New Zealand. And Wellington's one of those areas where the land is subsiding and also the sea is rising so the rates are much higher. We're already seeing a greater frequency of some of these big extreme rainfall events. And also longer and more intense drought events are going to be likely.

And these are going to effect every sector. They're not just going to affect, you know, people living around the coast. They'll be affecting the rural communities through increase and droughts, increasing pests and weeds to deal with, with increasing temperatures. The forest sector will get new pathogens that they'll have to deal with. And I know that there's work going on there breeding new forestry stock to be resistant to some of those. But the question is 'can we do it quick enough?'

And so that brings me to the next point, which is that we have this twin, if you like, which has been disconnected for some considerable time, which is reducing our emissions, on the one hand, and secondly, adapting to the impacts which are starting to rise above the parapet and being more obvious and will get worse.

And you have to have both. And they have to work together. Because we already have warming baked into the system affecting our oceans and affecting our land through heavy rainfall. But more particularly around sea level rise. There's a lot of inertia in the ocean. You can't just sort of stop it. And it's going to go on to centuries.

So we're facing a pretty grim future. Increased fire risk is another, which of course our colleagues and friends in Australia have confronted already and are working through 'what do you do about this?', you know. Do you stop people building in places that are subject to fire? And what do we see?

I read yesterday that the New South Wales Minister has taken away the precautions that were put in place by his predecessor which would have protected people by fire-proofing and stopping people building in places that are particularly at risk.

So we've got this — you know I think we're better off here. We've got more consistency building in our policies in New Zealand. Now, I think we have to really watch Australia because they have not done well in the way their governments have worked to address climate change. Whereas here, at least, we've got that legislation in place than a, you know, cross-party political agreement which has been, really, the lifeblood of progressing this work forward.

So that gives you a sort of a picture of the landscape. And you can, as people, interact with that process through your political representation, but also through the groups that you work with and live with.

I've been really warmed by the fact that lots of groups out there are doing things and working together to work through how they might adapt to climate change, how they might reduce their emissions, how they might have a smaller carbon footprint on the atmosphere. So these are the sorts of things — but I'll stop there for now and you might have some other questions, Richard, that you want to put to me.

What is more important to climate change, individuals & government

Richard Busby: Well, thank you for that. Very enlightening. I guess I did have a follow-up question in terms of the government. You have kind of set a picture of how the climate change commission works, you know, as an advisory, then how it goes through the Parliament and the different forms of government. You've also painted a pretty, like, stark picture between local government and central government in terms of the lack of capacity and resources.

I would kind of wonder what do you think would be the best resolution there, and if there are any tricks and balances to make sure that it's always in operation because, I guess, you know, one of the biggest things is that people seem to, I wouldn't say pass the buck, but there's also the conversation between individual and, I guess, you know what the group or the government can do.

So, what would you say would be the best resolution for helping local governments be more proactive, be more involved and have enough resources there.

Judy Lawrence: Yeah. Money, money, money.

[Laughter]

Joking aside, money is at the heart of it.

Richard Busby: Yeah.

Judy Lawrence: Or several things. There are some interesting initiatives occurring already, where regional and district councils are getting together across a wider region to do risk assessments, climate change risk assessments.

Now, that's not required in law. But to enable them to undertake their functions in law through, whether it's planning, whether it's through three waters activity, whether it's, you know, their building consent activities or defense, all those sorts of things, pest management. You know, to do that you need to know what your risks are, right?

So a number of them have got together to develop risk assessments. And also that will flow into developing adaptation plans. Now, they have taken the initiative to do that. There's been — not all councils are doing it but some notable ones like Dunedin City, like Northland, like Waikato and, I'm just trying to think of them all. But Hawkes Bay have done elements of it. Marlborough environment plan is another. So, you know, there's activity going on around Christchurch and the Canterbury region as well starting up.

But at the end of the day, you need to have a process whereby you can identify what the risks are to your region and prioritize that. And prioritize it in a way that you're doing the things first that are going to have longevity. That they're going to be things that don't just patch up a problem at the coast, for example, but are things that will enable you to have a strategy going forward into the future. So that if your seawall fails, you've got a plan B.

And I mean, this is just sort of, you know, common sense 101 really. But, you know your hazards, you know you can make your decisions and you can know that there's some some sensible protection for a period of time. You might have other options in the future and you can switch your strategies.

So, it's really a strategic approach. And if local government starts that process now, it will be well placed to be able to implement the Resource Management Act reforms which have a strategic planning act as the First Act. And the second is the Natural and Built Environment Act, which will be the rule book, if you like. And then the Adaptation Act, which is planned and has to really be thought through now, rather than leaving it till later, because that was intended, or is intended, to address the question of funding.

And funding for the big transformational changes that may have to — or will have to happen, at the coast particularly, with sea level rise. And, also, fund the conversations that need to happen before those decisions get taken. You know? How can Westport have this conversation now and work out its options, and what its strategy might be. It might chuck some rock in the sea to help protect it, but it won't last long. And they need a plan B. Where are they going to move to? Because, inevitably, that that will have to happen at some point. And it could happen in a staged way, or it could happen as a whole community, for example.

But those processes are extraordinarily damaging and disturbing for communities. And I noted yesterday the last of the people left Matata. And that was essentially a lesson in how not to do manage retreat. Okay? And there have been some good examples where that has happened, and one very close to me near the Hutt River — where all the work was done to identify the risks, to develop a number of strategic options, to cost them, to put them out for public conversation, and to identify areas where they make more room, in this case, for the river.

And so, the Regional Council bought up a goodly number of properties and has done that over a period of time. And that will enable them to have the flexibility to manage the the flood risk in the Hutt River for a long time. And, you know, none of these processes are perfect. But I would err towards the latter, rather than the former, where very quick decisions were made for EQC money to be given to people to restore their lives and fit to where they were. And that was done on the on the assumption that they could protect that.

And so, what we very easily do, I think — without consciously thinking about the future — we think, 'Oh we can build it. We can build a structure and it will enable us to carry on being there and we'll be protected for a long time.' Well we have to question that line of logic. Because there are many places where we will not be able to protect people. And hard decisions will have to be taken. But you can't make those decisions without having a very serious conversation, over a period of time, with your communities.

And so, the Adaptation Act, in looking at what it might fund, would be very good to be funding having those conversations, the processes to have those conversations, before the rules are set down as to exactly what the limits of the funding will be, and how they will be shared.

So, you know, there are ways — and look, I have to say, this is not a conversation that's just happening in New Zealand. I daily read my news feeds and see the problems that are occurring on the east coast of the United States, where people are built on sand, where ground waters are rising under big high-rise buildings. And their days are numbered. And yet, very little conversation is going into, well what's going to happen, are people going to just have to get on with their lives somewhere else, and those who can afford it go there, and those who can't stay there?

And I mean, that's happened in New Orleans, as well. You know, the people who stayed have been flooded again. So these are very real problems. The deltas of the world are the ones that are in a funny sort of way quite adaptive.

Bangladesh, for example, is an interesting example where land use change is occurring and facilitated by the government to help people change to crops that, you know, food that can be grown in places that are sailine, salty, you know, salt tolerant crops. They're looking at where they can grow different sorts of food and so forth.

And some of this adjustment happens quite easily and, sort of naturally in the primary sectors. And we've seen that in New Zealand. We had massive land use changes over the last three decades. You know, to different sorts of crops and different sorts of animals. And it adjusted because, you know, markets have changed, etc.

So with New Zealand, we're quite exposed to changes in climate change elsewhere as well. So you know, changes in consumer preferences, changes in the what we export, where those markets are, and the impacts of things like wars, for example, on on our markets. Sometimes they're an opportunity and sometimes they actually mess up our trade flows and supply lines and so forth, as we've seen with Covid. And those things will happen in New Zealand as well. The external implications will affect us.

So coming back to empowering ourselves to what we can do about it. And it's about a mindset change, at the guts of it. It's about thinking about our decisions today for tomorrow. And what will the impact our decisions today — will we create lock-in of communities at the coast? Or will we provide pathways out and pathways to other places that are safe? Or safer, because you can never reduce all risk, of course.

“Government is the enemy of climate change”

Richard Busby: Yeah. Of course. Thank you for that. I guess this kind of leads into kind of one of the talking points that I guess has been on the back of my mind. As someone who obviously does use social media quite a lot and looked at their opinions, I guess, of some of the the groups, etc.

There seems to be this ongoing, I guess, preconceived notion that the government has always been the enemy of climate change activists. As in, they're not implementing change fast enough or they only believe in economic growth and money and, you know, there's these greedy politicians that always want to you know mark the way.

And I just wanted to know, I mean, this discussion has kind of opened our eyes into a lot of the effort that local and central governments are making, so why is it that even after all these efforts do you think that, you know, a lot of these climate activists or organizations will have such a really bad, you know, general hate towards the government and kind of their direction?

Judy Lawrence: Yeah. Personally, I don't read blogs. Because they're not healthy and I'd rather spend my time looking for solutions. But I think you touch on a very important point. The political system in government, in other words, at the political level, is a reflection of society. Okay? And it's a reflection of the different self-interests that the society has.

And this is why they take polls, right? They do polling and they see which way the wind's blowing and they adjust their policies accordingly. Because it's the people out there that vote them in. Okay?

I mean that's the simple answer. So, they reflect and can reflect the lowest common denominator and they can reflect the wisdom in society. Okay? And you see all of that happening in our political process at central and local government.

And I have been, in the past, a local government counselor. And I observed that as well. I didn't stick around long in the political process. It wasn't to my liking. But it is a brutal place. And I think what the public could do is to use the political process to bring parties together. So rather than this having a them and us and, you know, this party and that party have different views, it's to find the common ground.

And I think we're at a time and a juncture in New Zealand society where we've had exceptional leadership to get us through this Covid, in terms of bringing the country together over an issue. And of course there's wrinkles in it and of course not everybody agrees with everything. But we have got through that with fewer deaths than any other country.

So I think we have to look at that and look at what were the success factors that brought that about. And one of them is leadership. And that's leadership amongst all of us, not just our prime minister. That's a huge burden to place on any prime minister. And a prime minister can only operate with leadership all around her.

And local government has that leadership as well. And I think, you know, it's sort of people sitting back and reflecting about what has been happening in the last couple of years. And looking at ways in which we can reap the benefits of that coming together that we have in a Covid setting, and finding channels for those conversations.

And I think at the moment, we're right on the cusp of moving on in a way we have in the past, which is not going to get us to where we need to be in New Zealand for climate change. Or we have the opportunity to build on a collective knowledge of what we've learned through the Covid process that can enable us to have those more productive and healthy conversations about what sort of a country we want to be in.

You know what sort of a country — I mean, we don't want people to be flooded, out of home, not able to move anywhere because the EQC system doesn't enable them to build anywhere other than where they were. We have to look at how do we change our ownership patterns of land. And where that can take us in some sort of a collective responsibility about the impacts of climate change. Because they will permeate everywhere and there is a huge risk — as the IPCC highlighted in the report that I was involved in — highlighted that it is the vulnerable that will suffer the most, and who will not be able to move, will not be able to make the choices that others have.

So we need to find ways in which those groups can be brought along and brought up into the conversations and helped to not be the sacrifice, if you like. Because that's not the New Zealand way, really. But it has emerged as a huge risk. And climate change will make that worse.

Changing your mindset, talking allies

Richard Busby: Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah, I do agree that the us versus them has been quite divisive. And I think — you know, you've already highlighted on it — but the changing of your mindset as an individual to be part of a unified collective that are all looking for the betterment of something, including climate change because it's going to affect us all.

So I guess in this final question, kind of as we near the end of it, it would be really great if you could kind of give us some insight as to, you know, you've mentioned, you know, people having more power here than in other countries and being able to talk to your legislative powers and your MPs. But, you know, outside of, not just MPS but also, who are the allies that are kind of really doing in this fight?

You've mentioned the climate change commission. Are there any other agencies or groups that you think that, you know, an individual like myself could get hold of to say, be educated, be part of the movement, offer up and volunteer their time and money. Like is there — could you gonna give us a — yeah.

[Laughter]

Judy Lawrence: I think, Richard, what you're suggesting is that there is a need for that sort of agency—

Richard Busby: Yeah.

Judy Lawrence: —and we, you know, in climate change there's only one apart from the government. And there is also the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who also plays a role in these sorts of debates. As a watchdog, if you like, across the environment domain and —

But we are lacking in these sorts of organizations. And there have been moves — we used to have a Commission for the Future many years ago. And this sort of idea has been mooted again. Ideas of citizens assemblies has been raised as another way, that different jurisdictions have been trialing and so on.

But I think, overall, we don't have enough of those sorts of organizations. We do have, you know, there's groups like The Aotearoa Circle, the sustainable business group who've come together on climate change issues. There's a number of those sorts of groups. And I think we have to watch that those groups don't become elite groups and that they're accessible.

I mean, that's at the heart of your question, I think, is that they have to be accessible to people. And, you know, hybrids of agencies that can have this, you know, community assess citizen assemblies on the side, but which empowers people to act, of their own accord, or empowers those who are part of them to take action as well.

I think those are some of the things that we can think about. But the instinct of most is to move on and get on with life as it was. Right? But life is not going to be like it was, and so we need to be thinking about how we can, if you like, frame what that future might be. And a number of futures exercise have been done in New Zealand, but they've never been mainstreamed into the way government goes about its business.

So, you know, reform around the the government institutions to have that sort of facility, you know, it might be something Speaker of the House chairs, for example. Because that has a particular role in our democracy, the speaker. I mean, that's just one example. But, you know, there could be others who had the power to bring things together. You know? We've had prime ministerial groups that have been set up from time to time. But then they get disbanded. They're never embedded in the architecture of governance in New Zealand.

And one thing we haven't covered is that we have a partner in governance which is Māori in the Treaty of Waitangi. And I think we can learn a lot from the governance arrangements within Māoridom.

And certainly, the IPCC, in its assessment, included a substantial amount of discussion from the literature about indigenous peoples' governance, if you like, as well as the issues of vulnerability. But more importantly, the governance of what we can learn and the way in which Māori groups in New Zealand are starting to do and have done their own climate change strategies. Right?

And what can we learn from those about how they could be intergenerational. Could deal with that linkage to the land and water, with humans as the integral — you know, as part of it as opposed to being on top of it and destroying it. And growing the economic part of our remit as a society to the extent that it destroys what we actually value.

So I think that is an important and very significant and increasing set of vital values, really, that make us different as a society. So I think the concepts of kaitiakitanga, for instance, are absolutely intrinsic to dealing with climate change. And so I think we've got a lot of talking to do between Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand to actually formulate what you were asking about, which is 'how can we get access?', you know 'how can we get that conversation?'

Richard Busby: Exactly—

Judy Lawrence: And an effective conversation rather than a, you know, he says she says, and yeah, which doesn't take us anywhere.

Seeking real information and the dangers of social media

Richard Busby: I guess some of the essence of my question would have just been, you know, taking information at its basic level among your communities, among your peers in a very informative way outside of social media and divisive comments. And kind of just allowing us to really engage each other properly. And then being proactive about the work that we can do together as well.

So I really appreciate that you've highlighted and been so honest. Because you really have highlighted some, I guess, some lack of resources in some areas, especially in the local level. But that you've also kind of really educated us about, kind of, the impact that we can have, how we can change ourselves and then actually work with our MPs and our peers. So thank you so much for that.

Judy Lawrence: So it's about having a conversation and really taking it somewhere. So every time you talk to someone to talk about it you become the climate change ambassador, I suppose is one way I'm putting it. Yeah.

Closing

Richard Busby: Well we have unfortunately run out of time.

Judy Lawrence: Thank you, Richard.

Richard Busby: But we hope that we can have you again in the future and we look forward to all the work that you do. And we wish you the best. Thank you, Judy.

Judy Lawrence: Kia ora tātou. Thank you.

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