Yes, climate change is on the radar

What a delight to see a full house at Paraparaumu Community Centre for a meeting on climate change, proving Bill English wrong about this not being an election issue.

With party representatives from all political parties except National (she sent a message to say she was stuck in traffic in Lower Hutt), the lively event was chaired by Julia Truscott of Low Carbon Kapiti.

Professor James Renwick of Victoria University said the earth was already one degree warmer, and to conform with the Paris Agreement we can only go to 1.5 degrees.

Already we are seeing major climate events like Texas and South Asia flooding and wildfires in California – and it is only going to get worse. We have 3-5 years to turn this around. Megan Woods (Labour) said that local government needs a lot of support for climate adaptation, Jan Logie (Greens) said with suppression of Ministry of Environment reports, it is not getting enough information. Stormwater is getting expensive.

Geoff Simmons (TOP) said local government has been hung out to dry with sea level rise.

ACT want to get rid of Landcorp and plant trees instead of dairying.

The Greens want to scrap the ETS, and TOP and Labour want to cap emissions and reform it.

Deirdre Kent

Secretary, Low Carbon Kapiti

MAHARA REDEVELOPMENT

In the aftermath of the council’s decision to place its plans for a new combined library and art gallery building in Waikanae on hold, I want to reassure the Kapiti community that Mahara Gallery Trust Board is immediately returning to work again on a stand-alone gallery redevelopment on the gallery’s existing site.

This will involve reviewing the work done in the past, including our original concept brief and building on considerable work and resources already developed.

We supported the plan for a combined facility because we considered it would deliver the best outcome for Waikanae and the Kapiti district.

While the decision to place the project on hold is disappointing, we understand the council’s reasons for making it and we are grateful that the council remains committed to its budgeted contribution to the gallery redevelopment.

We now intend to proceed separately from the library to redevelop the gallery on its existing gallery site.

Our priority remains creating a museumstandard facility that will enable the nationallysignificant Field Collection to be retained in Kapiti and stored and displayed in the gallery.

The Field Collection is a treasure, with considerable potential as a visitor attraction for Kapiti.

We appreciate that its offer to Mahara Gallery will not last indefinitely and that we must move as quickly as we can to secure it.

The scope of the project will depend on the financial support we receive. We will be renewing our campaign to raise money from private and public funders, including the Kapiti community.

Les Holborow

Chairman Mahara Gallery Charitable Trust Board