Kōrero on Catastrophe: NZCat webinar/panel discussion on resilience to nuclear war and other global risks

Through 2023 the NZCat team researched and engaged stakeholders and experts on Aotearoa NZ’s vulnerability and resilience to nuclear war and other global catastrophes.

On 25 October 2023 we held the NZCat Project Webinar, comprising a 30min overview of the work, followed by an insightful in-depth expert panel discussion. Read the short report, or watch it here:

Key Moments

• 00:00 Presentation intro
• 02:38 NZCat methods
• 09:49 Resilience of core sectors
• 20:16 Risk management
• 25:38 Presentation wrap-up
• 28:25 Panel discussion begins

Panellists

• Ben Reid – Founder of Memia; Strategic technology advisor and commentator on emerging tech trends.
• Charlotte Brown (PhD) – Joint Managing Director of Resilient Organisations; Specialist in risk management and decision-making.
• Hamish Gow (PhD) – Sir Graeme Harrison Professorial Chair at Lincoln University; Independent Appointee on the Fonterra Milk Price Panel.
• Lucie Douma – Head of Client Strategy at Farmers Mutual Group (FMG); Former Manager of Covid Recovery at MPI
• Mark Trüdinger – Group Recovery Manager at Northland Civil Defence Emergency Management Group; Leading recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle.
• Matt Boyd (NZCat, Adapt Research)
• Ben Payne (NZCat, Adapt Research)
• Sam Ragnarsson (NZCat, RONGO)

You can download the webinar slide deck here and the NZCat Main Report here.

Audience

The audience was diverse and individuals in attendance were affiliated with organisations including:

• NZ National Emergency Management Agency
• Regional NZ Civil Defence and Emergency Management groups
• NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
• NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid-19 Lessons Learned
• NZ Productivity Commission
• Disaster Relief Australia
• Agricultural industry organisations
• Global catastrophe think tanks
• NGOs
• Academics

Audience Input

The webinar provoked interesting and important audience input. Here is a transcript of questions/comments on the night (lightly edited for clarity and grammar). NZCat hope that all of these can be addressed in future work.

Q: Great to see the analysis on how to feed the local population and I acknowledge you’ve based this on calorie demand, however it’s critical that we take a human first approach to these sorts of options and in this case, the protein and micronutrient requirements for humans need to be considered alongside calorie. The Riddet Institute have done some good work in this area a few years ago.

Q: Was any attempt to look at future discounting especially in a country with a 3-year political-policy cycle? This is one of the biggest issues in dealing with large future risks and low probability / high impact risks (eg, climate change, overpopulation). While [the NZCat] framework is great, only positive political/communal appetite leads to action.

Q: I think one of the aims of the [NZCat] report is to highlight the need for a long-term plan, that is not bound to political cycles. [However] we can’t simply just wait for the government, [and] also [need to] look towards ourselves and grassroots organisations. In the end, if the public is asking for it strongly enough, the politics might follow.

Q: I’m interested in your thoughts on the benefit of individual organisations or industry groups forming their own risk assessments, going wider than government as participants in this process.

Q: [If there is no diesel, and biofuels are not an option], what could replace biofuels, for food production?

Q: Totally agree with Lucie re biofuels in the US [where lots of corn has been diverted from food] but one of the solutions proposed was to focus on the detritus of food or other crops (e.g. forestry slash, corn stalks…)

Q: Work was done in the 1970s on gasification of extensive immature pine and other plant species as an alternative fuel source. Was that considered as an option?

Q: In a nuclear war scenario, have we considered NZ’s political stance? Eg, it’s possible that a war would be East vs West. If ‘East’ meant China, who could be in a better position to trade with us post-war, should we be cosying up to China to not be lumped into 20th Century political relationships (eg, 5 eyes, UK Commonwealth)?

Q: Wouldn’t the concept of a modern internationally connected capitalist economy largely be redundant in this scenario?

Q: Given that Marsden Point was (deliberately) designed to not (easily) refine Taranaki crude [oil], did a domestic refinery really offer any meaningful fuel resilience?

Q: NZ has ODESC, a Hazard Risk Board, and NEMA as examples of structures that could be expanded to conceptualize, assess, and prepare for major risks. But how is this incentivised and actualised? You have mentioned constitutional change – what sort of constitutional change?

Q: What Charlotte said was really important, about how we communicate risk to politicians and the public. there is too often a hectoring attitude we take. She talked about the need to express adaptability, and a symbiotic approach. I would like to hear more about what that looks like.

Q: Good points on language and the negative perspective Charlotte – I’m just launching a research project on risk communication that will look at the language we use, what sources are trusted, what media are the best – it’s a Resilience Fund project so results should be available to everyone.

Q: We’re already sitting at about a 90% probability of one of: the Alpine Fault earthquake, Hikurangi earthquake and tsunami, or a Taranaki volcanic eruption in the next 50 years. We already face an expanding suite of [locally] catastrophic risks, which is why it is currently a focus of NEMA. Any solutions really need to benefit multiple risks to NZ.

Q: I’ll throw my 2 cents in on Ben’s question – my experience in the CATPLAN is a big ‘NO’ – NZ has so little experience with ‘normal’ disasters (think 2004 tsunami, Europe wildfires this year, etc) that there is little to no ability to think/imagine large disasters.

Q: One example from the CATPLAN (and is still ongoing) is a lack of understanding of how [international non-government organisations] respond, and the role International Humanitarian Law plays in a NZ-centric disaster.

Q: DPMC and National Security don’t really use [coordinated incident management systems (CIMS)], but CIMS certainly can and should be used in conceptualising, planning for, socialising, responding to, and recovering from crises of this nature and scale. A major drawback with current catastrophic planning being led by NEMA is that it isn’t based on any particular hazard scenario. The “all-hazards as no-hazards” paradox at play.

Q: We *should* start to build our own versions of Google and M365 and AWS, etc – our future is long. Much longer than any of these Big Tech companies will be around. We need to think more long-term, and we need to think and invest in resilience – sometimes at the cost of convenience.

Q: I’m advocating ‘low-tech’ solutions for backup systems: UHF radio systems, old style windmills for pumping water, helium balloons above emergency refuges (places to go if displaced), earthquake frequency resonant bells, etc. Things that don’t depend upon our eggs-in-one-basket electronics et al.

Q: Picking up on what Charlotte was saying earlier – the public’s focus on putting food on the table, how can we fund resilience against catastrophic risk? The emergency management system certainly isn’t funded and resourced to do this. It will cost billions. We also need to adapt to climate change and other global environmental risks. How do we tie these all together and manage the collective risks?

Q: Viewing through a lens of ecological / biophysical economics, the breakdown of global supply chains and energy systems is baked in with peak oil fast approaching (if it has not already occurred). Popular alternatives to oil eg, battery electric / lithium ion, do not have the biophysical capacity to replace an oil powered economic system and also embed further reliance on multinational and deeply unsustainable supply chains (e.g. cobalt mines, coal mining for solar panels, etc etc.)

Q: Permaculture is a well thought out system that was designed specifically to be a response to this predicament – do any of the of the speakers have comments on permaculture as a potential solution?

Q: What happened to the report from 35 years ago? 1. The Iron Curtain came down, generating a belief that the spectre of nuclear war and winter had evaporated. 2. The neoliberal revolution swept across the globe and washed away practically all concepts of long-term planning for anything, especially risks, including nuclear risks – more so in Aotearoa but also elsewhere.

Q: You may want to consider the advanced steam technology being developed by Canterbury start up Mackwell & Co. that generates clean energy from biomass. Advanced steam technology is the simplest and most efficient means of converting the sun’s energy into traction… eliminating the need for capital, resource, and energy expensive refining infrastructure.

Q: Agree with Mark on recovery – technically – but here in [Hawkes Bay], recovery has been very limited for example not including reduction resulting in ‘build back’ not ‘build back better’.

Q: ODESC has no statutory basis. Nor does DPMC for that matter. The lack of any real statutory basis for risk, let alone emergency and recovery management at the highest level is convenient for those stakeholders but is a major risk for the nation.

Q: Need to look to resource depletion as a part of this process. Particularly fuel supply and using the 100-year lens. bit.ly/NSENGNZ – have given many presentations on this but agree this is an amazing kōrero!