One of the things we’ve learnt about climate change politics over the years is that their predictions are always wrong.
Remember Al Gore’s 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth, which frightened audiences worldwide with apocalyptic predictions that rising seas would inundate low-lying nations creating millions of climate refugees, that melting sea ice would lead to mass polar-bear drownings, that Lake Chad would completely dry up, and all the snow on Mount Kilimanjaro would disappear? None materialised.
Or what about the foundational claim that reducing human emissions of greenhouse gases would lower carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere – only to find that when man-made emissions plunged by almost 10 per cent during the world-wide Covid lockdowns, total CO2 rose!
What that highlighted, of course, is that at around four per cent of atmospheric carbon dioxide, man-made emissions are dwarfed by nature with the vast majority of CO2 coming from natural sources: released by oceans that are still warming from the Little Ice Age, created by animals and plants from respiration and photosynthesis, and produced by volcanic eruptions, rock weathering, and other natural processes.
The Covid result effectively disproved the central premise of Net Zero – that reducing human emissions will lower atmospheric CO2 and bring down global temperatures. But in spite of real-world evidence that alarmist climate predictions and theories are wrong, Net Zero, the Paris Agreement, and Armageddon claims of a man-made climate emergency live on.
Perhaps expecting enlightenment on such a cult-like issue as climate change is expecting too much, given it took half a century for scientists – and over three centuries for religious leaders – to concede that Galileo was right and the earth does orbit the sun. One can’t help but wonder how long it will be before the modern-day climate obsession is put to rest.
Fortunately, the cracks are already appearing.
Microsoft chairman and former leading climate advocate Bill Gates has warned that climate change may not pose the existential threat to humanity that has long been claimed.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is echoing the same message, urging the UK Government to prioritise cheap energy over Net Zero. While Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform’s Nigel Farage have promised to scrap Net Zero, whether new Prime Minister Andy Burnham follows suit remains to be seen.
Even the European Union is now changing its tune: instead of treating livestock farming as a major threat to EU emissions goals, it is now describing farming as an “essential industry”, “critical infrastructure” and the basis of “food security” – small steps towards rationality admittedly, but progress nevertheless.
Then there’s the Paris Agreement. While President Trump’s withdrawal of the US has prompted Argentina, Indonesia, and others to consider following suit, the reality is that since the agreement is non-binding, most countries find it easier to stay in it and do little or nothing.
Except, of course, New Zealand – where former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, declaring climate change her “nuclear‑free moment” and eager to be seen as a “global leader”, embedded extremist climate projections into our legislative and regulatory framework.
By turning a non‑binding international accord into punitive domestic law through the Zero Carbon Act – and handing its implementation to the Ministry for the Environment (MfE), the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), the Climate Change Commission, local authorities, and other agencies – New Zealand entrenched radical climate policy throughout the machinery of government. As a result, worst‑case climate scenarios now shape hazard maps, infrastructure standards, district plans, and long‑term strategies.
The bureaucratic architecture driving New Zealand’s climate compliance is, in effect, “gold plated”, not because the Paris Agreement requires such an approach, but because government institutions were directed to internalise extreme modelling assumptions into every level of decision-making, regardless of global realities or economic consequences.
The main culprit, of course, is Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 – one of a set of emissions scenarios developed for the United Nations International Governmental Panel on Climate Change as modelling tools, to help scientists ‘stress-test’ climate systems, to see how they might respond under various levels of greenhouse‑gas concentrations.
RCP8.5 is an apocalyptic scenario that assumes a runaway global population totally reliant on coal for energy – including to fuel ships, planes, cars and trucks – with minimal technological progress and no climate policy anywhere in the world.
Yet somehow – and this is the real scandal – this doomsday measure was labelled “business as usual” and used in climate management worldwide.
That, of course, includes New Zealand, where guidance incorporating RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5, and other associated scenarios, predicting global temperature increases of up to 4.4 degrees Celsius by 2100, along with massive sea level rise of well over a metre, was issued by MfE and NIWA for local authorities. This dramatically affected council zoning, building consents, and infrastructure costs – and, when picked up by banks and insurance companies, lending decisions and insurance levies as well.
However, last month, the UN committee responsible for the measurements used in climate modelling by the IPCC rejected this most extreme scenario as “implausible” and retired the RCP8.5 and the SSP5-8.5 pathways.
This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator Professor Roger Pielke of Colorado University – a leading critic of RCP 8.5 extremism – outlines the situation:
Using RCP8.5 to predict coastal hazards in New Zealand – or anywhere else – and thus serve as the basis for home pricing and insurance is simply a misapplication of science.
Climate policy analyses, including cost-benefit studies, typically start with a baseline scenario as a representation of where-we-are-headed and then compare that to other scenarios in which policy is introduced within the scenario. Such scenarios are typically called policy – or mitigation – scenarios.
Such a comparison, in principle, allows decision makers to evaluate the expected effects of implementing a policy versus not implementing that policy.
Based on the IPCC’s official AR6 baseline scenarios – RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5, SSP3-7.0 – New Zealand councils had drawn hazard lines across property titles, adjusted infrastructure plans, and shifted insurance and lending exposure, with real economic consequences for New Zealanders.
Thanks to the correct decision by the CMIP7 scenario committee, we now know that all of these decisions and consequences have been based on a scenario now officially recognized as implausible.
As Professor Pielke explains, reliance on the “fatally flawed” RCP8.5 scenario provided climate activists within local government with the justification for applying extremist policies. The consequences are evident: climate risk notations on LIM reports, absurd proposals to relocate entire coastal communities, escalating insurance premiums, banks refusing mortgages on coastal properties, and planning requirements so restrictive that worthwhile developments – together with the jobs, investment, and economic benefits they would have delivered – are simply abandoned.
The financial consequences are significant as climate strategies, consultants, emissions‑tracking tools, hazard maps, adaptation plans, and “resilience” programmes all require substantial funding.
Infrastructure priorities have also shifted as roads, stormwater systems, and coastal defences are redesigned based on unrealistic climate scenarios, and transport policy becomes ideological, with councils choosing cycleways, EV infrastructure, and emissions‑reduction projects over core services.
Within councils, climate activism expands the bureaucracy as staff are encouraged to treat climate as the overriding lens for decision‑making – regardless of cost – through the emergence of new climate units, managers, advisors, and reporting systems, with emissions dashboards, sustainability frameworks, and climate‑aligned procurement rules.
The good news is that the coalition has been listening to the growing concerns over the use of RCP8.5 by local authorities, and last month, the Minister of Climate Change, Simon Watts, took action by writing to councils:
Dear Mayors, Chairs and Chief Executives,
I am writing regarding the use of climate change assumptions in council planning, infrastructure investment, asset management, and regulatory decision-making.
The Government expects councils to continue planning for climate risks and ensuring communities are resilient to future climate impacts. Climate adaptation remains an important responsibility of local government.
However, the Government is increasingly concerned that some climate-related planning and investment decisions may be relying on high-end emissions scenarios in a way that results in unnecessary costs being imposed on ratepayers, businesses, and communities.
Recent international assessments indicate that SSPS-8.5 and its predecessor RCP8.5 are best regarded as less likely, high-impact emissions scenarios that are useful for stress testing and contingency planning. They should not automatically be treated as the central or most likely future when making decisions that affect infrastructure investment, land use, property rights, or rates.
New Zealand faces significant infrastructure challenges. Every dollar spent on resilience measures is a dollar that cannot be spent on fixing roads, upgrading water infrastructure, improving community facilities, or reducing pressure on rates. Councils must therefore ensure climate-related decisions are proportionate, evidence-based, and represent value for money.
Accordingly, the Government expects councils to:
• Use a range of credible climate scenarios when assessing infrastructure and planning decisions, including medium and high-end scenarios.
• Clearly identify which scenario has been adopted as the primary planning assumption and explain why.
• Demonstrate the additional costs associated with higher-end climate assumptions and disclose the impact on rates, debt, and long-term affordability.
• Prioritise adaptive pathways and staged investment approaches wherever practical, rather than defaulting to immediate construction of infrastructure designed solely around worst-case assumptions.
• Ensure that regulatory decisions affecting landowners, businesses, and communities are supported by robust evidence and are proportionate to the risks being managed.
• Subject major climate-driven capital expenditure proposals to rigorous cost-benefit analysis and independent challenge.
The Government’s expectation is clear: councils should plan for climate risks, but they must also plan for affordability.
High-end scenarios such as SSP5-8.5 remain useful for testing resilience and understanding extreme risks. However, the Government does not consider it appropriate for worst-case assumptions to become the default basis for investment decisions that impose significant costs on current and future ratepayers.
Councils should be able to demonstrate that climate-related investments are necessary, proportionate, and represent the best use of scarce public resources.
The Government will work with the sector to improve consistency and transparency in climate-related planning and infrastructure decisions. I have directed officials to undertake a stocktake of current council practices and provide advice on whether additional national direction, reporting requirements, or legislative changes are required to ensure climate-related decisions appropriately balance resilience, affordability, and value for money for ratepayers.
New Zealanders rightly expect councils to prepare for future risks. They also expect councils to avoid unnecessary gold-plating, focus on practical solutions, and exercise discipline when spending ratepayer money.
I encourage elected members and council executives to review their current planning assumptions and decision-making frameworks considering these expectations.
Yours sincerely,
Hon Simon Watts
Minister of Climate Change
While the minister should be congratulated for his initiative, the response of the Greater Wellington Regional Council to his letter shows that he has not gone far enough:
Greater Wellington uses a range of scenarios as part of its risk and mitigation planning. Where it has used high-emissions scenarios, this reflects long-standing central government guidance and established climate risk assessment practice. While these scenarios are now increasingly regarded as less likely, they remain useful for stress testing and understanding long-term climate risks. At Greater Wellington, their primary application has been in risk assessment and hazard modelling. Based on current information, there is no evidence that their use has led to disproportionate or ‘gold-plated’ investment decisions. Rather, they have helped ensure that the resilience of long-lived assets and services is considered under a range of possible future climate conditions.
In other words, the council intends doing nothing!
Clearly the minister needs to do more than merely suggesting councils abandon their extremist scenarios.
If his letter is to have any effect, he now needs to send a formal directive to MfE and NIWA to not only ensure that they retire RCP8.5 and related scenarios, but that their official guidance is updated accordingly. All other government agencies that are influenced by climate change policy, must also be instructed to replace the Ardern government’s extremist measures with more realistic ones.
Furthermore, the coalition should include the new requirements for councils in the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, to ensure the minister’s advice has strong legislative backing.
The reality is that, because local authorities have long been captured by climate extremism, the minister needs to do more than advise, warn, or expect compliance. He must force councils – through legislation – to change their destructive behaviour.
However, since the bill that could be used for this purpose is still awaiting its first reading in parliament, any law change is unlikely before the election – and only after the election if the coalition secures a second term.
So, with that in mind, concerned ratepayers should consider direct action. Anyone who supports the minister’s effort to rein in worst‑case climate modelling should contact their councils directly.
Without public pressure many councils will – like Greater Wellington – treat the minister’s guidance as optional and do nothing.
But if ratepayers write directly to their council CEO, the mayor, and councillors asking for details of their timetable to remove the extremist RCP8.5 and associated scenarios from their climate requirements, they will help to force action.
A link to all local body chief executives, mayors and councillors can be found HERE. Below is a draft letter that can adapted. And if you know other locals who share your concerns about the climate obsession of your council, encouraging them to write as well, will strengthen the impact.
Good luck!
*Suggested Letter (copy and paste into an email using your own words to adapt it) – and send individually to the CEO, the mayor and each councillor with the minister’s letter attached at the end.
Subject: Extreme climate scenarios in council planning
Dear [Name],
I am writing as a ratepayer regarding the council’s use of extreme climate scenarios in planning and infrastructure decisions.
I’m aware that the Minister for Climate Change, Simon Watts, has written to all councils expressing concern about the over-reliance on RCP8.5 and similar worst‑case scenarios. These pathways have been deemed implausible by the UN body that sets the framework for climate modelling, and have been retired.
The use of these extreme scenarios has resulted in inflated infrastructure costs, unnecessary restrictions on development and housing, higher rates and debt, to name but a few.
I therefore request advice on when the Council intends to retire these measures and replace them with more reasonable, evidence‑based alternatives.
Below is the Minister’s letter – for your information.
Thank you for your attention.
Yours sincerely,
[Name]
[Address]
[Phone]
[Copy and paste the Minister’s letter here]
This article was originally published by the New Zealand Centre for Political Research.
