MEDIAWATCH: Why Simon Wilson is one of NZs best columnists
There are not many reasons why you buy a NZ Herald subscription, Simon Wilson is one of them and his latest piece reminds you why he’s one of NZs best columnists…
Climate change: Fronting up to managed retreat – Simon Wilson
- The cost to insurers of 2023’s Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle was initially estimated at more than $3.5 billion.
- More than 115,000 claims were lodged after the two natural disasters.
- Premiums for house, content and car insurance have soared over the past year – the cost of insuring a house increased six times faster than incomes for the year to March 2024.
…despite the claims by the Political Right that climate change is a socialist hoax and despite this Government amputating climate change budgets, and despite the polluter industry getting legislation re-written for them, DESPITE ALL THAT, catastrophic climate change continues escalating, the planet continues to melt and insurance goes through the roof.
The Helen Clark Foundation has been raising the alarm over insurance affordability in the face of climate change and her solution is a publicly funded insurance policy for flooding and far more mitigation and managed retreat…
New report warns of insurance crisis due to climate change; urges immediate action
A new report by the Helen Clark Foundation and engineering consultants WSP highlights a looming crisis for residential insurance in Aotearoa New Zealand. As climate-related extreme weather events escalate in frequency and intensity, ‘insurance retreat’ could leave thousands of properties unprotected.
An estimated 10,000 coastal properties in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin could become uninsurable by 2050 due to coastal erosion and inundation. Properties located in flood prone areas inland are similarly at risk.
The report – titled Premiums Under Pressure – How climate change will reshape residential property insurance, and what to do about it – finds that, without intervention, residential insurance premiums for flood prone properties will continue to rise steeply and become unaffordable for many, with insurers eventually expected to withdraw flood coverage altogether for the most at-risk properties.
Low-income households and communities will be disproportionately affected, with unaffordable premiums likely to leave many without coverage just when they need it most. This poses a serious social equity issue for the nation.
As insurers adopt ‘risk-based pricing’ due to climate change impacts, WSP Fellow and report author Kali Mercier says the thorny challenge facing policymakers is how to keep premiums accessible and affordable.
…we are in denial about what climate change means and we are in denial over the speed with which the climate is fundamentally changing in ways that will make failing states implode.
We are not ready politically, socially or economically for the adaptation in front of us, especially with this climate denying Government.
But those insurance rates don’t lie no matter how much we want to pretend free market consumerism as usual is still possible on a burning planet.
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Look, I hate the environmental dgradation done by the global exploiters as muh as anyone. And if we’re serious about doing anything about the environment or climate, we know who the culprits are, who should pay – because you just start at the biggest bank balance and work down.
But, instead we have those same exploiters devising the solution. And folk getting all emotional about their story and their solution and their actions as if it is proof of anything to do with climate. It’s not.
The FIRE – Finance Insurance and Real Estate – industry raising premiums at the drop of a hat
while the property tycoons snap up beachfront real estate and “earthquake prone” buildings
under their industry devised “resilience” schemes
and “Net zero carbon” metrics THEY devised
gaming around in a global system THEY dominate
is a hallmark of rapacious globalised non-Smithian capitalist Business as USUAL.
Not proof of environmental apocalypse.
When we are on track to a decline in home ownership to 50%, the issue is important in the sense that banks require insurance on a property before they will lend.
But does government really want to take over the cost of assisting the sale of property in flood prone areas and assuming the insurance liability?
Why not look at flood protection systems area by area? And relocation of housing in some of them?
For mine government would do better to look at earthquake insurance costs, a government owned insurance option where the government claims ownership of the land if they fund a rebuild (much cheaper insurance for the home owner and the government can afford it, because there is the land asset). Or the older occupant couple can get their family home rebuilt as a small build (lower cost of insurance). Or a family home is rebuilt, but the property is subdivided with government able to place a small build on its new share.
What about government buying up the coastal properties for whatever they can get them form, and then using them as rental properties for the poor. There will be management discrimination and workers and family areas, and small buses to take them to any job they can get, and bring them home to their doors again. It would be making a silk purse out of a sows ear of housing disasters but it would aid the running of the country and those who are losing out big time on housing now, from both sides. It would be practical for the present no lordly housing commission or vast future planning, turn it over to Councils who can present go-to plans and methods and lists of interested and needy people who can be helped. It is as kind as Kiwiland can afford to be in real money, not pie in space terms.
Climate change waits for no climate deniers .
At some point in the future Capitalism will be collapsed by the increasing impacts of climate change.
At some point in the future Capitalism will be collapsed by the increasing impacts of climate change.
At some point in the future Capitalism will be collapsed by the increasing impacts of climate change.
Its a crime that Willson and other good jurnos are behind a paywall so that the average joe does not get to read the real stuff thats going on in the real world not the fiction world of social media .