A future that includes worse congestion, isolated and stressed communities, flooded ports and disrupted airports has been considered as part of this new report into Aotearoa New Zealand’s transport system.

Commissioned by The Aotearoa Circle with members of the KPMG NZ IMPACT team acting as the project secretariat, the report provides a set of three distinct climate change scenarios for Aotearoa New Zealand's transport sector. Drawing on the knowledge and perspectives of experts from both within and adjacent to the transport sector, it explores the big climate risks to our transport system if we fail to adapt to, or mitigate, the worst impacts of climate change. 

The transport sector scenarios are intentionally challenging, seeking to confront conventional wisdom and alter the basis for business-as-usual thinking. 

The scenarios are for boards, executive teams, business leaders and sustainability professionals to use so they can start to plan and prepare for the disruption that will come either as a result of climate impacts, or the shift to lower carbon operating models. 

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Transport Sector Climate Change Scenarios



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Frequently asked questions

  • Climate change scenarios are a tool for Climate Reporting Entities (those required by law to report on their climate impacts and dependencies) and others who are adhering to External Reporting Board (XRB) standards. They are defined by the XRB as “plausible, challenging descriptions of how the future may unfold. These descriptions are based on coherent and internally consistent sets of assumptions about the drivers of future physical and transition risk and opportunity.”
  • Instead of trying to predict the future, they paint broad pictures of how the future could plausibly look, and in doing so create a base for testing the resilience of the sector to climate change and to the challenges it could bring.
  • The projections are designed to be challenging, they are intended to be bold – they paint several possible pictures of a future impacted by climate change.  
  • These scenarios make us think. They are for boards, exec teams, business leaders and sustainability professionals to use, so they can start to plan. They let businesses and other organisations prepare themselves for the impacts of climate change. They help to challenge our assumptions and prepare us for a climate-impacted world that is radically different from our current reality.
  • They can also motivate businesses and other stakeholders to strengthen their efforts to fight climate change.
  • The transport sector is vital to New Zealand’s ability to function.
  • Scenarios are not predictions – they are hypothetical futures.
  • Scenarios are not a roadmap for transition or adaptation for the sector.  They are not intended as recommendations for action for any individual entity.
  • Scenarios are not policy recommendations for central, regional, or local government, or for regulators, but can certainly inform them.

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