TLDR/Summary

• The NZ Government is consulting on two major draft plans: the National Infrastructure Plan and the National Fuel Security Plan.
• Our charity, Islands for the Future of Humanity, submitted responses to both, urging stronger planning for global catastrophic risks (GCRs) like nuclear war, extreme pandemics, or trade collapse.
• We find both plans lack adequate preparation for long-term or extreme global disruptions or global critical infrastructure destruction.
• Our recommendations include more focus on infrastructure essential for providing basic needs like water, food, transport and communications in the worst possible scenarios, such as trade isolation.
• We also propose mandatory resilience assessments in all infrastructure investment decisions, explicitly addressing potential global catastrophes.
• Submissions are open: help shape NZ’s future resilience before the deadlines—6 August (Infrastructure) and 25 August (Fuel Security).

Two critical government consultations

The New Zealand government has called for submissions on drafts of two major plans pertaining to national infrastructure and fuel security.

The NZ Infrastructure Commission and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) have asked how we can future-proof the systems that keep our country running.

Our non-partisan independent charity Islands for the Future of Humanity has made submissions on both, advocating for a bold shift in how we think about resilience: not just to climate change or short-term shocks, but to global catastrophic risks (GCRs) that could fundamentally alter New Zealand’s operating environment.

We find that neither draft satisfactorily addresses global catastrophic risk. We need to ask more of our decisionmakers to ensure national resilience and future wellbeing.

Government plans need to ensure basic needs like food, water, transport and communications can be provided no matter what catastrophes befall the world.

The Draft National Fuel Security Plan, released by MBIE, proposes stockholding obligations, better data visibility, expanded fuel storage, and support for biofuels and EVs. The Plan builds on the 2025 Fuel Security Study, which modelled a severe 90-day disruption to fuel imports (and which we critiqued in a previous post finding the analysis wanting). While welcome progress, the draft plan stops short of addressing how New Zealand could survive a prolonged or permanent disruption to global fuel supply—such as from nuclear conflict, electromagnetic pulse, or widespread supply chain collapse. These are not science fiction; they’re now being actively studied by global agencies, including the US National Academies of Sciences and a new UN Scientific Panel on nuclear war impacts (see our previous post on these reports).

In our submission, we call for a fuel system that guarantees basic needs—food, water, critical transport—under even the worst scenarios. That means modelling fuel demand for essential services in year-long (or longer) disruptions, and developing domestic liquid fuel production capacity, especially regionally distributed biofuel refineries that can pivot between commercial and crisis modes. Electrification is essential, but we must also prepare for shocks that knock out the electric grid itself, as detailed in our recent webinar and expert panel discussion on catastrophic electricity loss.

Meanwhile, the Draft National Infrastructure Plan, published by the NZ Infrastructure Commission, takes a broad look at long-term investment challenges. It rightly addresses fiscal constraints, climate resilience, and aging infrastructure—but barely mentions the possibility of catastrophic global disruption, yet the risk of this is clearly rising, as we’ve discussed in a previous post. Our submission urges the Commission to embed systemic risk and GCR thinking into infrastructure planning, including:

• Distributed and resilient energy and food systems,
• Domestic cloud and communication infrastructure,
• Transport redundancy across islands and to Australia, and
• Pandemic-ready health facilities and critical supply sovereignty.

We also argue for mandatory resilience assessments in infrastructure funding decisions, contemplating catastrophic risk scenarios, and using long timeframes and appropriate discount rates that don’t marginalise future generations.

Both submissions draw on our wider work, including our NZCat Report, which maps how island nations like New Zealand are vulnerable to GCRs, but with foresight can play a vital global role in preserving human civilisation through catastrophe—if we plan accordingly.

You can read our submissions

Read our submission on the Fuel Security Plan
Read our submission on the Infrastructure Plan

Do you agree with us?

Have your own say – submissions to both consultations are still open:

• Fuel Security Plan consultation page (closes 25 August, 2025)
• National Infrastructure Plan consultation page (closes 6 August, 2025)

Let’s make sure resilience means more than recovery after the fact, or merely protecting business as usual. It must mean anticipatory governance and preparedness for whatever comes.

Support our work

If you support this kind of thinking and work, then help us free up time to do more. Please consider donating via our NZ registered charity’s givealittle page.

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