The "mother ship" of all plans will give Dunedin City Council an all-encompassing approach to help keep the city safe in the event of a climate emergency.
A proposal that the council develop a climate adaptation plan was passed 14-1 at the 2023-24 annual plan deliberations earlier this week.
This plan would unite all the current climate plans, such as the South Dunedin Futures Programme, under a single overarching framework.
Deputy mayor Sophie Barker said adapting to climate change should be the council’s No 1 priority.
"The world is steadily and sometimes catastrophically feeling the effects of climate change," she said.
"We need to be building the fence at the top of the cliff, not relying on the ambulance when climate change hits"
Cr Barker said evidence of the effects of climate change was starting to rear its head.
She noted concerns about dams in Port Chalmers, flooding in the Strath Taieri and coastal erosion on Otago Peninsula.
"There’s a strong pattern of evidence that we need to address this in a holistic way and have a city wide concrete plan."
The council needed to be "shovel-ready" to apply for the Government’s $1.7billion emergency response fund and this plan would ensure Dunedin got a piece of the pie, she said.
While council already had responsibilities under the national climate plan, Cr Steve Walker said he would support the proposal because it added a local flavour to deliver on local promises.
Cr Jim O’Malley stood by previous comments he has made — that metres upon metres of sea level rise were inevitable within the next two to three hundred years.
Without a co-ordinated plan in a single place, it would be hard to get a good outcome, he said.
"The human species has never turned out to be that good of a forward-thinking species.
"We will be suffering from climate change no matter what we do, therefore we need to adapt and to have it in one place is the right way to do it."
Cr Lee Vandervis, the only councillor that opposed the plan, said all climate action had done so far was produce more paperwork.
The history of "negative speech" about South Dunedin’s vulnerability to sea level rise had drastically reduced the potential for development and property values in the area, he said.
"We here, I believe, completely exaggerate the issue of sea level rise."
The Port Chalmers tide gauge had indicated a "matchstick width of sea level rise" of 2mm-3mm, he said.
In the event that sea level rise became a problem, a cheaper, more cost-effective option would be to install bigger water pumps around South Dunedin, he said.
