Unliveable cities and a loss of culture and health could be just around the corner, according to the latest international climate change report.
The report, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was released overnight and has a dire outlook.
Flooded streets with water seeping into houses and belongings floating past the window - this wild weather is set to continue if action is not taken over climate change.
It's a reality Westport residents have dealt with three times in eight months.
It's playing out right now in Queensland, where flood waters are ripping through towns and a thousand people have been rescued.
The report is monumental at over 3000 pages long - it has 270 authors from 60 different countries, and takes into account over 34,000 academic papers and studies.
Massey University professor Bruce Glavovic, a contributing New Zealand author to the report, said every single community, especially marginalised ones, will experience climate change.
"What this report does is it brings to the fore the fundamental importance of inclusive and enabling governance. That means government, at all levels, needs to be working in close partnership with civil society, the private sector, with science, with indigenous people and especially with those who are marginalised and vulnerable," he said.
"Our cities will be hotter and less liveable, there's a risk of spreading pathogens and viruses ... Sea level rise is an existential threat for many island nations and for low-lying coastal zones and communities - their infrastructure and the important cultural heritage that we associate with these places."
Flooding in Westport last July. Photo: Supplied/NZ Defence Force
NIWA scientist Andrew Tait agreed and said New Zealand has already seen a shift towards warmer weather.
"It's very common for [New Zealand] now to have record temperatures ... or heatwaves or marine heatwaves ... These types of climate and weather events are now part of our normal vocabulary and our normal weather."
Tait worked on the previous IPCC report and believed the biggest change the country will face is an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events.
"We're subject to these types of hazards like flooding and drought and we are able to deal with that for the most part ... We will continue to have those types of extreme weather events we have seen in the past but what climate change is doing is making them more frequent," he said.
Flooding in Kumeū. Photo: RNZ / Sarah Robson
Insurance Council New Zealand chief executive Tim Grafton said extreme weather event claims have doubled in the past decade.
"If we look at the last five years, those costs are in the order of $1.25 billion. But if you went back the five years prior to that, the insured losses were something in the order of $560 million."
He said last year was a record one for weather-related claims, with the total cost over $324m - and it's set to keep climbing.
Grafton said while there is always an element of risk from the weather, the losses are often more than just financial for communities.
"These extreme weather events bring devastation to local economies, social disruption, and environmental damage. So there are very good reasons why we need to take a long view and ask ourselves 'what are we doing to reduce those risks?'"
An aerial photo shows flooding in Marlborough in July 2021. Photo: Marlborugh District Council
But Bruce Glavovic said despite the doom and gloom, there is hope for Aotearoa yet.
"There's also cause for hope because we do have a strong institutional architecture - we are a country that has good governance, we have transparent leadership, transparent political interactions."
Glavovic believes it is a job for both central and local government.
"National government can provide critical mandates, funding and can help build capability. But local government is very much at the coal face ... working with local communities to navigate these turbulent, stormy waters we are now navigating a path through.
"We need to recognise it is the cumulative choices that we make as individuals, families, communities, cities and nations ... that make climate development changes," he said.
His final message to New Zealanders is simple: business as usual is no longer acceptable.
