Moving beyond “mitigation and adaptation”: examining climate change responses in New Zealand

Abstract

Despite the apparent failure of international negotiations and renewed criticism of the accuracy of climate science, responses to climate change continue in households, cities, fields, and meeting rooms. Notions of “doing something about”, or “taking action on” or “mitigating and adapting” to climate change inform practices of carbon trading, restoring native forests, constructing wind turbines, insulating houses, using energy efficient light bulbs, and lobbying politicians for more or less of these actions. These expressions of agency in relation to climate change provide the focus of our enquiry. We found that relationships or social networks linked through local government are building capabilities to respond to climate change. However, the framework of “mitigation–adaptation” will need to be supplemented by a more diverse suite of mental models for making sense of climate change. Use of appropriate languages, cultural reference points, and metaphors embedded in diverse histories of climates and change will assist actors in their networked climate change responses.

Keywords:

• climate change
• action
• governance
• New Zealand
• social networks

Notes

1. MfE's Sustainable Management Fund; the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Sustainable Farming Fund; and the Communities for Climate Protection run by International Council for Local Environment Initiatives (ICLEI) (CCP-NZ).

2. Version 2.11.1, R Development Core, R Project.

3. Some interviewees were invited to participate on the basis that they had been involved in previous research. Others were identified using the snowballing technique.

4. Wellington is the capital of NZ and the base for most CG agencies.

5. For example, interviewees from LG are indicated with, those liaising between LG and CG policy agencies are; members of the PS, companies (Co) LNGO, community groups, and CG policy agencies.

6. Marlborough – M, Waikato – W, New Zealand – NZ.

7. Each month we collected all articles featured in the first five pages of the Factiva database; the first 50 results from the Google search engine for blogs and the first 20 YouTube videos originated in NZ or about NZ concerning climate change.

8. AgResearch is a Crown Research Institute owned by the NZ Government and focused on supporting the pastoral sector through scientific research and development (AgResearch 2012).

9. Green Drinks is a self-organising network of people that meet regularly in cities around the world. These social meetings often involve a presentation on environmental issues relevant to members (Green Drinks International 2010).

10. The Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) is the treaty signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and Maori chiefs.

11. “Doing our fair share” is the term used to describe the NZ government's establishment of the Emissions Trading Scheme to reduce emissions relative to developments internationally and in science. See Ministry for the Environment (2012a).