13 November 2007

Greens fear for coast at risk from climate change
Greens candidate for Eden-Monaro, Keith Hughes is concerned that rising sea levels caused by global warming will threaten new developments in Narooma.
Mr Hughes said that a project currently seeking approval from the Eurobodalla Shire Council in the Narooma flats area, one of the most vulnerable locations in our region highlights the lack of Federal and State Governments strategies to help vulnerable coastal areas prepare for rising sea levels.

Ironically, in this instance the developer is the State Government’s Department of Environment and Climate Change.
”Projected ocean rises over the next century could see much of it submerged”, he said.
Mr Hughes said that sea level rises in many parts of NSW will lead to property damage, loss of foreshore ecosystems, loss of foreshore recreation areas and property becoming un-insurable.
”Some inundation of low lying areas and more severe flooding of coastal properties are inevitable; it is already happening in the Pacific and it is just a matter of before it happens here,” he said.
Mr Hughes said that global sea levels are already rising as a consequence of melting polar ice, increased ice melt in the west Antarctic shelf and Greenland and thermal expansion of the oceans.
”We are not just facing sea level rises; we must also expect major storm surges,” he said.
Mr Hughes said that we know that this is going to occur, yet there is no serious Government planning for it.
Governments around Australia have been extremely slow to address the implications of coastal vulnerability caused by climate change, including who is going to pick up the bill, he said. Latest evidence suggests that the Arctic sea-ice has passed its "tipping point" and will disappear entirely in summer, likely in the next six to 20 years.  This is almost a century ahead of earlier predictions.

“If this happens sea-levels could rise several metres this century,” he said.