Climate response bill unlikely to pass before election, minister says

A law change requiring councils to come up with climate adaptation plans is unlikely to pass before the election, the climate change minister says.

The Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, introduced to Parliament on Wednesday, proposes mandatory adaptation planning for areas at high risk from climate change hazards like flooding.

City and district councils will need to plan at least 30 years into the future and spell out the likely cost.

The government has still not announced how the costs will be shared, saying last year that those decisions would be deferred until the next parliamentary term.

Climate change minister Simon Watts told RNZ that he wanted the bill to go through a full select committee process.

"Realistically, with Parliament rising on 24 September, it won't be passed before the election - it'll be passed after the election and put into law."

He was hoping for cross-party support and had held "collegial conversations" with some opposition parties about it.

Asked who would bear the costs of whatever adaptation measures were included in the plans, he said the government "was simply not at that point".

"The first step is get the plans in place and work through that."

The government would "not be head in the sand" about the potential costs, though.

"Adapting to the impacts of climate change ... is significant," he said.

"Everyone is aware that, how do you fund this and who pays, are the two most complex and politically charged and challenging areas."

The country was already incurring costs as a result of climate change impacts.

"Those costs are most probably higher than what they need to be, because of the lack of adaptation planning and targeted investment in areas that may mitigate that risk," Watts said.

The country as a whole would have to prioritise where and how adaptation happened.

"There is a relationship between what we do and what we can afford."

At the moment, without consistent adaptation planning, the government and councils "don't even have a rough estimate on the 'what' portion of that", he said.

That consistency would include ensuring councils were using up-to-date climate models and scenarios to develop their plans, he said.

Two years ago, budget cuts prompted Earth Sciences New Zealand to make half its team of climate modellers, who downsized global climate models for use in New Zealand, redundant.

Some councils will find planning challenging - Insurance Council

Insurance Council chief executive Kris Faafoi said the proposed law was a step in the right direction.

However, insurers wanted to see action as well as just plans.

"While this is a great development, we need the urgency and the activity from the councils to identify some of these areas, to plan, and importantly to fund these mitigations."

Some councils would find that a challenge, he said.

"That's a challenge they shouldn't be facing alone - we should be looking to make sure that they're supported by everyone who's got some skin in the game here."

Earlier this year the council proposed that the Fire and Emergency levy collected through insurance premiums should be redirected into a pool of funding for climate adaptation and resilience projects, with Fire and Emergency funded directly by government instead.

The proposal met with muted responses from both major parties.

Whatever legislation was passed should be done so with cross-party support to ensure certainty over policy and funding, Faafoi said.

"These are not issues that are going away.

"The councils and the communities that will require a lot of work to keep them safe over the next five, 10, 15, 20 years, will need to know that there's not going to be chopping and changing of attitudes at the Parliament end."