New Zealand leaders favour small incremental changes in response to escalating climate impacts rather than the bold changes needed to make a real difference, according to research by University of Auckland academic Dr Sasha Maher and Professor Brad Jackson (University of Waikato). 

The study finds current leadership practices insufficient, encouraging small, fragmented steps that weaken climate policy.

Maher and Jackson say responsibility-focused leadership that builds relationships and collective action is needed.

“New Zealand is in the process of designing a national adaptation framework, and questions regarding leadership are being actively debated,” says Maher.

“Our paper examines leadership responses to climate change, particularly climate adaptation. We explore whether leadership in this area is enabling transformative adaptation, or whether it’s just reaffirming the incrementalist, status quo approach.” 

Adaptation, the process of adjusting to the effects of climate change, aims to mitigate risks and protect communities. However, the paper, published in the journal Leadership, suggests that the country’s current approach could exacerbate inequities and perpetuate long-term risks.

Central government should place equity and relationships at the centre of adaptation, ensuring that responses to floods, storms, and rising seas are not only about protecting property, but about strengthening and safeguarding vulnerable communities.

Interviews with stakeholders and an analysis of public documents from 2021 to 2024 found that current climate adaptation practices fall short, favouring piecemeal responses.

“Although we found evidence that key stakeholders, from government and non-government groups, agreed on the purpose of adaptation leadership, there was considerable divergence about who adaptation leadership should benefit,” says Maher. “Also concerning was the avoidance of any particular group to take an explicit responsible leadership position.”

Under the current government, a major reason for adaptation is to minimise fiscal costs, says Maher. This was also a concern for the previous government, but it sat alongside other considerations, including equity and justice, particularly for Māori and vulnerable communities.

Now, says Maher, political narratives take a much stronger pro-market approach, signalling that climate adaptation leadership should be devolved to individual homeowners and the market.

This, she says, has encouraged actions such as the construction of personal sea walls; it has also provided the insurance sector with a governance role to direct behaviour via pricing risk.

By shifting responsibility onto individual homeowners and insurers, climate leadership has narrowed to protecting property rather than addressing inequities or broader environmental impacts, say the researchers.

“New Zealand’s emerging form of adaptation leadership leans towards incrementalism, cutting off recognition of our collective ties and obligation to others,” says Maher.

“Central government should place equity and relationships at the centre of adaptation, ensuring that responses to floods, storms, and rising seas are not only about protecting property, but about strengthening and safeguarding vulnerable communities.”

The study began following severe floods in the West Coast, Buller, Tasman and Marlborough regions in 2021. These flood events raised heated questions about adaptation costs, whether insurers would withdraw from high-risk areas, and whether some communities might need to relocate permanently. 

Maher and Jackson analysed documents including parliamentary reports, policy briefs, submissions, ministerial advice, annual reports, and media articles. Sources included the Ministry for the Environment, Treasury, MBIE, the Reserve Bank, the Climate Change Commission, insurers, banks, planners, the property sector, Forest and Bird, the Environmental Defence Society, and news outlets. 

They also interviewed experts and stakeholders, asking them what leadership should look like in a future of more frequent events, such as floods and storms, and who they thought should take responsibility. 

In light of their findings, the researchers say climate adaptation leadership should be responsibility-focused, led by central government and put equity and community first.