Chapter 2 Our first national adaptation plan 2022–28

The plan was published in 2022. Some actions in the plan were amended in January 2025 as part of the Government's response to the Climate Change Commission's national adaptation plan progress report. These updates reflect changes in circumstances since the plan was published, and align with the Government’s climate strategy.

See the response and updated table of actions for more details.

This national adaptation plan is the first in a series of national adaptation plans that will be developed every six years in response to national climate change risk assessments prepared by He Pou a Rangi – Climate Change Commission. It is the first step towards meeting the Government’s long‑term vision and goals for a climate-resilient Aotearoa New Zealand.

This plan is a Government-led plan for all New Zealanders that brings together existing actions and proposed future work into a multi-year work programme. Together, these set out what central government will do over the next six years to enable all levels of government, sectors and communities and all New Zealanders to better understand the risks and take action to address them.

We have a clear picture of the risks for 2020–26

The actions in this plan are strongly guided by the National Climate Change Risk Assessment 2020. This identifies:

• 43 priority risks that Aotearoa faces from climate change
• an urgency profile for each risk, and the responses that would help address each risk
• the ten most significant risks – these are the two most urgent risks in each of the five domains (natural (N), human (H), economy (E), built (B) and governance (G)) – see figure 6.

Figure 6: The ten most significant risks Aotearoa will face from climate change in 2020–26, by domain

Four priorities to address the risks

The national adaptation plan is required to address the most significant risks identified by the risk assessment. The actions in this plan will help to address all 43 risks, as well as the risk to the telecommunications network.

The plan sets out four priorities for action:

• Priority 1: Enabling better risk-informed decisions (chapter 3).
• Priority 2: Ensuring our planning and infrastructure investment decisions drive climate-resilient development in the right locations (chapter 4).
• Priority 3: Adaptation options including managed retreat (chapter 5).
• Priority 4: Embedding climate resilience in all government strategies and policies (chapters 6–10).

Outcome areas

To address specific realms of risk, this plan sets out five ‘outcome areas’ where targeted action is needed. These broadly align with the domains identified in the risk assessment:

• natural environment (NE)
• homes, buildings and places (HBP)
• infrastructure (INF)
• communities (C)
• economy and financial system (EF).

Objectives

The Government has identified a series of objectives for addressing the risks identified in the risk assessment. These objectives relate to either:

• system-wide issues or
• specific ‘outcome areas’.

Table 1: System-wide and outcome area objectives of the plan

Actions

The actions throughout this plan are designed to achieve these objectives – and many actions will help us achieve more than one objective. Many actions are system-wide, because climate risks are interconnected and affect the broader systems of our society.

The Table of actions provides a comprehensive list of actions in this plan. The actions are mapped to the relevant risks identified by the National Climate Change Risk Assessment 2020 and the Government’s system-wide and outcome area objectives. The Table of actions also identifies the lead agency responsible for the action, the relevant Government portfolio, the status (current or proposed) of the action, timeframe and implementation measures.

Chapters 3–10 identify critical actions, supporting actions and proposed actions.

• Critical actions are the actions that will make the most difference and we must start now.
• Supporting actions are either less urgent, or are dependent on the critical actions.
• Future work programmes are proposed actions that reflect current thinking about what will be needed in future.

All critical and supporting actions are current, which means they have funding and mandate. Future work programmes are proposed, which means whether they go ahead, and in what form, will depend on a range of factors. These include the critical or supporting actions they depend on, the need for those actions, and funding decisions, including future budget decisions.

Adaptation planning requires a flexible approach that can accommodate change but keep us moving in the right direction. Inevitably, actions in the later years of this plan are less clearly defined. Over time, decisions will be made on which proposals to progress and when, and whether new proposals are required. These decisions will be made as the results of earlier actions become clearer.

Many of the actions in this plan are interrelated and will help address multiple risks, priorities and objectives. This reflects the interconnected nature of climate issues. It also underscores the importance of taking a flexible approach to the future work programme.

Chapter 11, the final chapter in this plan, addresses implementation of the plan.