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Local government guidance materials

As part of its portfolio of climate change work, the Ministry for the Environment has begun a programme to assist regional councils and territorial authorities to better understand and take into account climate change effects when carrying out their day-to-day operations.

In particular, the programme aims to develop guidance materials for local authorities to assist them in assessing and managing the risks of climate change in their planning processes. It has been designed to provide underpinning information for councils on climate change effects under the provisions of the RMA (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Act which came into effect on 2 March 2004.

This project also supports a number of other work programmes led by the Ministry for the Environment, most notably the Government's work on flood risk management.

Guidance materials

The guidance materials:

  1. provide clarification on expected climate change effects, both at the national level and with respect to regions in New Zealand
  2. provide practical tools in the form of decision-making and risk assessment frameworks to enable councils to better take into account and plan for climate change via existing council planning, asset management, hazard management and regulatory processes
  3. highlight best practice in planning for climate change.

The following guidance manuals are available:

The Ministry for the Environment also maintains a climate change impacts and adaptation reference list of useful resources.