Hamish Fitzsimmons ABC 7 News 17 Sep 14;
Sydney was named as one of the places which would be hardest hit by rising sea levels.ABC Sydney was named as one of the places which would be hardest hit by rising sea levels.
Future sea level rises could put more than $200 billion of Australian infrastructure at risk, a report by the Climate Council has found.
The report, Counting the Costs: Climate Change and Coastal Flooding, showed sea levels were likely to rise by between 40 centimetres and one metre over the next century.
The Climate Council succeeded the Australian Climate Commission, which was axed after the Federal Government took office last year.
The report's lead author, Professor Will Steffen, warned national income would suffer huge losses if action was not taken to protect against rising sea levels and extreme weather events.
"You're looking at anywhere from three tenths of a per cent of loss of GDP per year, all the way up to 9 per cent loss of GDP per year," Professor Steffen said.
"That upper scenario is higher than the growth rate of GDP per year, so you're looking basically at staggering economic costs if we don't get this under control."
The Victorian coast, the south-east corner of Queensland and Sydney would be the hardest hit by rising sea levels, the report found.
With more than 75 per cent of Australians living near the coast, Professor Steffen said large swathes of infrastructure were at risk.
"Much of our road, rail, port facilities, airports and so on are on the coast," he said.
"If you look at a 1.1 metre sea level rise - which is the high-end scenario for 2100 but that's what we're tracking towards - you're looking at more than $200 billion worth of infrastructure that's at risk."
Professor Steffen said so-called once-in-a-lifetime natural events could become regular occurrences.
"If you look at some of our most vulnerable areas, and the Sydney region is one of those, you would say toward the end of this century that a one-in-100-year flood is going to be happening every few days," he said.
"That's an impossible situation to cope with."
Professor Steffen said infrastructure projects, like the new runway planned for Brisbane's airport, needed to factor in future sea rises.
"The people who are investing actually went to the best scientists here in Australia, experts of sea level rises, and took the best science into account and decided they were going to build that third runway higher than previously planned," he said.
If sea level rises were ignored, by 2050 the report predicted the global the impact of coastal flooding would cost $US1 trillion per year - the same size as the Australian economy.
Climate change impacting insurance premiums
The Climate Council warned sea level rises would put pressure on home insurance premiums, as rising sea levels fed coastal erosion.
Australian Local Government Association president Felicity-Ann Lewis said erosion was already causing problems for home owners.
"The insurance industry is very interested in this because some of the insurance premiums are becoming such that people can't afford to take out insurance on their properties," Dr Lewis said.
"This is a very big issue."
Dr Lewis said a lack of coordination across all levels of government was impeding action.
"It's a very mixed bag; there is no consistent view or approach for local government to try to deal with this," she said.
"Each state and territory association is trying to deal with different guidelines; there is no consensus around that, so for us it's a very big challenge."
Rising sea levels a 'sleeping giant' that could cost $226bn, report says
Analysis by the Climate Council finds Australia is likely to experience rises of 0.4m to 1m, putting infrastructure at risk
Oliver Milman theguardian.com 16 Sep 14;
Rising sea levels are a “sleeping giant” issue that will put at risk coastal infrastructure worth up to $226bn, a new report has found.
Analysis by the Climate Council found Australia was likely to experience a sea level rise of 0.4m to 1m by the end of the century, with a “high end” scenario of 1.1m possible if the world warmed by about 4C compared with pre-industrial temperatures.
In this worst-case scenario, $226bn in property, including houses, schools, hospitals and ports, would be exposed to flooding and erosion, making much of it unviable.
The report says Sydney is “particularly vulnerable” to sea level rises, as flooding that now comes once every 100 years could occur every month.
South-east Queensland would suffer $2bn in damages from just a 0.2m sea level rise, while about 80% of Victoria’s coastline is vulnerable to higher sea levels.
Rising sea levels are caused by the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps as the planet warms. Thermal expansion, when the ocean expands due to warming, also contributes to a higher sea level. The global sea level is currently rising by an average of 3.2mm a year.
The Climate Council’s report warns that these seemingly small increases matter because they severely exacerbate extreme weather events, making coastal areas more vulnerable to storm surges and flooding. Just a 10cm sea level rise trebles the risk of coastal flooding.
Along with flooding, more than half of Australia’s coastline, about 31,000km, is vulnerable to recession, where the ocean eats away and degrades the coastline.
The advancing seas will cause problems for the tourism industry, the report predicts, with the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu national parks put at risk. Sandy beaches such as those on the Gold Coast, in Tasmania and Perth could all suffer erosion.
Professor Will Steffen, a co-author of the report, said Australia’s sea level would depend on a number of factors.
“There are a range of projected sea level rises and 1.1m is on the highest end,” he told Guardian Australia. “There is concern about the west Antarctic ice sheet, which may not remain stable throughout the century, while Greenland is losing mass too.
“Put simply, if you’re an investor in infrastructure you’d expect to be around at the end of the century, get planning for a 1m sea level rise. There are quite a few cities where there will be a thousand-fold increase in one-in-a-century floods, which makes things unviable because you’ll be mopping up every month.”
Steffen said radical cuts in carbon emissions, along with a more integrated plan to secure coastal buildings, were required to deal with the looming problem.
“There is some good planning going on – for example the people building the new runway at Brisbane airport listened to the science and realised they are on low-lying land that’s prone to flooding,” he said. “They moved it up higher to minimise the risk.
“But a lot of councils are carrying the can and it’s hard for them when they don’t have supportive state and national governments.
“It appears we don’t have that support in Australia. If you look at the countries successful in getting emissions down, countries like the UK and Germany, they don’t have time for climate sceptics, they get on with the job of preparing their countries for climate change.
“It’s disappointing to see Australia moving backwards rather than joining that kind of movement.”
