If you care about the future generations as much as you say you do - or think you do - then you’ll have no problem with Christchurch city councillor Sara Templeton pushing for the council to charge a new levy to help with the cost of adapting to climate change. 

Her argument is simple. How can we say it’s fair to expect future generations to not only live with the consequences of climate change, but to pay for it, as well? To carry the financial burden? 

And she is spot on. It’s not fair. 

But I tell you what. While I think she’s right, and that this is the sort of thing we should be doing, I bet we won’t. 

Because there’ll be no shortage of people banging-on about Sara Templeton and her cycleways, Sara Templeton being anti-car and Sara Templeton ramming climate change down our throats. There’ll be no shortage of all that noise. 

And many of Sara’s fellow councillors will hear all that and they’ll get spooked - as politicians do - and they’ll keep kicking the climate change can down the road. 

If there’s anything we should learn here in Canterbury from the water disaster in Wellington, it’s that councils nationwide need to get their heads out of the sand and, if stuff must be done, they need to get on with it. And ratepayers need to front up with the money. 

And you might say ‘oh all that stuff in Wellington is about maintenance of the pipes’. Yes, correct. But the reason they’re in the situation they’re in up there is that councillors up-and-down the country over the years have only been concerned about the here and now. Or the here, now and the next election. 

And I bet that’s what will happen in Christchurch with this idea that ratepayers pay a special climate change levy, over and above their rates. 

But I think it’s a no-brainer. We have to do it. 

Sara Templeton is pushing to have this new levy included in the Council’s long-term plan, which it’s working on now. 

She’s being very realistic, and she isn’t saying they should be charging it on top of the 15 percent rates increase that’s on the cards for the next year. She’s saying that, once rates increases are back into single figures, that’s when this new levy would come into effect. 

It cracks me up how we often hear people banging-on about the debt being left behind for future generations by central governments. But this so-called concern about future generations is all talk, if we aren't prepared to have some skin in the game. 

And that’s what Sara Templeton is calling for. She wants us to put our money where our mouths are and to stop expecting someone else to pay for the gazilions that are going to have to be spent to adapt to climate change. 

If you’re like me and you think that the climate emergency the city council declared back in 2019 was just a piece of PR. Then how can you possibly disagree with what Sara Templeton is pushing for? 

As she says, the council is dreaming if it thinks it’s going to halve emissions by 2030 - a goal it set itself not long after it declared the climate emergency. 

And let’s not forget sea level rise. Pretty much every time you mention this, you get the counter-claims that sea-level rise has nothing to do with global warming. 

Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is - sometime pretty soon, we are going to have to start moving people away from coastal areas. It’s going to happen here in Canterbury. Maybe sooner than we expect. And do you think the insurance companies are going to turn up to that party? Of course they’re not. 

Do you expect the young kids and teenagers of today are going to be delighted to pay for that  problem, which they didn’t create? Of course they’re not. 

And not only that. They shouldn’t be expected to pay for it all, either. 

As Sara Templeton is saying, this new levy wouldn’t be like a lotto win for the council. It wouldn’t cover all the costs that are going to come from adapting to climate change. But it would help. And that’s why I think it’s a no-brainer. 

And yes - it’s quite possible that you and I might not see any benefits from this new levy in our lifetimes. Because this is a long game we’re playing here.  

But is that reason enough not to do our bit? Of course it isn’t.