‘Big social issues’ and cost as sea rises
Climate change is coming, and with it communities may have to be abandoned or left to deal with major financial costs.
Environment Commissioner Jan Wright said the country would face some ‘‘big social issues’’ because of climate change, identified in a report presented to Parliament’s local government and the environment select committee.
She urged central and local government to improve their planning and have national guidelines.
The report identified 44,000 homes would be affected by flooding when the sea level rise reached 150 centimetres.
It would cost $20 billion to replace those houses – and the figure did not include any infrastructure, telecommunications or other buildings.
When considering a 50cm hightide rise, 9000 homes would be affected with an additional 4000 buildings.
This would equate to a $3b cost for replacement.
Wright had been in talks with insurance companies and banks about the effects.
‘‘If a particular property is subject to this kind of risk, then insurance companies will start to look at whether they insure it or not,’’ she said.
‘‘So you might see premiums go up, you might see the co-payments go up. Eventually a house would become uninsurable – probably a lot before it became uninhabitable.’’
She said insurance companies ‘‘would take themselves quietly out of the picture’’.
There could be mortgage holders in the ‘‘sad’’ situation of dealing with negative equity, where their mortgage would be bigger than the value of the house.
‘‘It’s kind of like a slowly unfolding red-zone in Christchurch.’’
The cost of sea-level rise of 50cm would affect a similar number of houses as in Christchurch’s evacuated red-zone within the next couple of decades, she said.
The report released maps by region of risk areas for flooding, erosion and groundwater issues. Those are available online. The United Nations’ climate body had predicted a 1-metre rise by the year 2100.
However, it may be a 2m rise at the current rate of carbon emissions, according to a study in the journal Nature which took into account Antarctic ice sheets that are melting faster than previously thought.
If all carbon emissions were cut today, the sea level would not rise, the commissioner said.