Bay of Plenty mayors, chairs and councils are taking a collaborative approach to climate risk mitigation.

On Friday, the Bay of Plenty Mayoral Forum discussed current and planned work across local government in the region in response to climate risk.

Across the board, councils are implementing climate action plans, investing to ensure infrastructure is resilient and reliable, identifying areas of vulnerability and options for intervention, ensuring growth plans reflect the impact of climate change, and future-proofing communities through the inclusion of climate adaptation actions in upcoming long-term plans.

The Bay of Plenty Regional Climate Change Risk Assessment was presented to the Mayoral Forum and released publicly in April this year.

The risk assessment provides a regional overview of current and future climate risks with the aim of identifying and highlighting areas where a focused effort is needed to manage these risks.

The outputs from the assessment establish a common baseline for the region and help to raise community awareness of risk, and support subsequent local risk assessments.

A Technical Working Group, established through the risk assessment project, updated the forum on work underway across the region.

The update included the main areas of focus for each council and relevant sectors.

Toi Moana Bay of Plenty Regional Council Climate Change Programme Manager, Nic Newman, says the risks identified across the region are varied and complex and unless we start addressing them now, they’re only going to compound in the future.

“The discussion held at the Mayoral Forum highlighted the breadth of projects that are already underway in this climate adaptation space, right across the region. Regardless of their size, no council is sitting on their hands waiting for central Government to offer solutions and are simply cracking on with taking a closer look at risks specific to their city and factoring this into their planning.

“There is huge value in this joined up approach, not only in the opportunities to collaborate but in ensuring there is no duplication of work. The Technical Working Group will continue to keep the Mayoral Forum updated of progress across all councils.”

Rotorua mayor and chair of the Mayoral Forum, Tania Tapsell, says “It’s not enough to just talk about climate change, our communities need to see action and solutions.

“Sharing information across the region helps us to plan and prepare for investment and changes needed to address the impacts of severe weather and climate events.

“This approach will help deliver better outcomes for our Bay of Plenty communities as we support each other in our future climate planning.”

The full agenda for the Mayoral Forum is available to view here.

Parts of this meeting were livestreamed and you can watch the recording of the meeting here.