A short link-post today, so you can listen to my interview (15min) with Emile Donovan on Radio New Zealand about trade and supply risks.
With the strait of Hormuz under threat due to Israel and the US’s attacks on Iran, trade and supply will be strained. There is risk of conflict spreading (Suez, Yemen), and this context means any synchronous crisis would massively amplify the problem (think of a major volcano near the Strait of Malacca, or an opportunistic China blockade of Taiwan).
NZ has been described as the ‘last bus stop on the planet‘ and its greatest risk is supply collapse impacting fuel, fertiliser, and replacement parts, resulting in inexorable degradation of critical functions. If not now, then at some point in the future given the reality of more than a dozen rising and interacting global stresses (climate, demography, ideological fragmentation, zoonotic disease, AI, geopolitical tension, etc).
Our 2023 NZCat Project Report analysed these Global Catastrophic Risks, and recommended:
- An independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Catastrophic Risk
- A National Food Security Plan
- Local biodiesel production at a minimum level to sustain minimal agriculture
- Distributed and islanded electricity generation systems including solar and geothermal
- Local digital technology for government services, payments, and communication
- Improved coastal shipping assets, electric rail, and urban design
- A publicly facing National Risk Register and deliberative democracy on resilience options
- Cooperation with Australia on global risk resilience
- And many other recommendations…
Which political party will run with a vision for NZ’s resilience to global reality in the 2026 election?
Adapt Research Ltd 