How should the risks of sea-level rise be shared? Final Report

This working paper applies critical description to climate change adaptation policy in order to answer the question of how, in a principled way, to share the risks of sea-level rise. It identifies two consensus ethical values and some related ceteris paribus rules for ethical policy making.

The working paper reviews abstract dynamics of sea-level rise policies as well as real cases of climate change adaptation policy. It arrives at some suggestions for making ethically robust policy decisions about adapting to sea-level rise. These are summarised here:

• New Zealand must bring certainty and consistency to its regulatory framework governing adaptation policy, in order to end the collective action problems and transfers of risk to the most vulnerable that arise from gaps in the present legal system.

• Adaptation funding must address both spatial and temporal inequalities, so that we do not transfer risk to the most vulnerable, whether that vulnerability is due to ratepayer capacity, membership in future generations, or another factor. 

• Dynamic adaptive policy pathways planning must include regular ethical evaluation of both processes and outcomes. Monitoring of ethical outcomes should aim to prevent unintended consequences of otherwise egalitarian and inclusive procedures, such as the regional loss of accessible beaches due to uncoordinated local engineering solutions. 

• Deliberative community policy planning processes must actively engage underrepresented voices such as those of youth and renters.