Climate Change: Website Reveals Which Homes Will Be Swamped By Rising Sea Levels

The Guardian - Michael Slezak

Coastal Risk Australia combines Google Maps with detailed tide and elevation data, as well as future sea level rise projections

A visualisation of Melbourne in 2100 under a five-metre sea level rise scenario. Photograph: Coastal Risk Australia

For the first time, Australians can see on a map how rising sea levels will affect their house just by typing their address into a website. And they'll soon be able to get an estimate of how much climate change will affect their property prices and insurance premiums, too.
Launched on Friday, the website Coastal Risk Australia takes Google Maps and combines it with detailed tide and elevation data, as well as future sea level rise projections, allowing users to see whether their house or suburb will be inundated.
Coinciding with that is the launch of a beta version of Climate Valuation, a website that gives users an estimate of how much climate change will impact their property value and insurance premiums over the life of their mortgage.
Coastal Risk Australia uses median sea level rises projected for 2100 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change under low, medium and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.
On the high emissions scenario – which is the path the world is currently on – the IPCC says sea levels will likely rise by a median of 0.74m by 2100. But a rise of almost 1m is within the "likely" range of levels that could be reached by 2100.
In every state and territory except the ACT, the website shows that houses and famous landmarks will be underwater by 2100. Beaches like Manly, Byron and Coogee in New South Wales would lose significant amounts of sand, as will Bell's Beach in Victoria and Noosa in Queensland.
Many coastal suburbs and cities are shown to be subject to severe inundation, including Cairns, Ballina and Hindmarsh Island.
James Hansen, a former Nasa scientist who is considered the father of modern climate change awareness, recently produced research suggesting that sea levels could rise "several metres over a timescale of 50 to 150 years".
The website also lets users see how any sea-level rise will affect an area. If sea levels rose 5m, then large parts of most coastal cities would be inundated, according to the website's calculations.

A visualisation of Sydney's eastern suburbs in 2100, under the five-metre sea level rise scenario. Photograph: Coastal Risk Australia

"We don't want to create hysteria but we don't want people burying their heads in the sand ether," said Nathan Eaton, one of the creators of the website from the company NGIS Australia.
The tool was adapted from work NGIS did when it created a similar tool for the Pacific Island nations of Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, in collaboration with the Australian Department of Environment and the Collaborative Research Centre for Spatial Information.
Climate Valuation, also launched on Friday, will, for a fee, tell users the probability of a property being flooded by rising sea levels; the projected increases in insurance premium from coastal inundation risk; and the projected percentage reduction in value of the property at the end of a mortgage.
It is being launched for use by researchers initially and will soon be available as part of a Kickstarter campaign, which the developers say will raise money to include more climate change-associated risks like bushfires and river flooding. People who pledge to contribute will get early access to it.
The developers say the site uses risk engines that are already used to assess billions of dollars of critical infrastructure in Australia and the new site will give the general public access to that data for the first time.
"We're hoping this helps people make informed decisions about their safety and on what is often the most significant investment they will ever make – their home," said Karl Mallon, head of the Climate Valuation Project.

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Carbon Price Needed To Avoid Economic Disruption From Paris Climate Goals – Analysis

The Guardian - Lenore Taylor

Climate Institute says regulations to phase out coal-fired generators and subsidies to encourage clean energy are needed

The Climate Institute says whichever party wins government will need to impose some form of relatively low carbon price. Photograph: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Australia faces significant economic disruption in 2030 to meet the Paris climate goals unless action is quickly taken, according to a new analysis.
The analysis, for the Climate Institute, recommends implementing a carbon price and regulations to phase out coal-fired generators, and additional subsidies to encourage clean energy investment.
The analysis finds that whichever party wins government will need to impose some form of relatively low carbon price, as well as regulations and subsidies to force a change to clean electricity generation.
A "modest" carbon price of about $17/tonne in 2020, rising to $40/tonne in 2030, would come close to meeting the Turnbull government's target of reducing emissions by 26% to 28% of 2005 levels by 2030. However, it would do almost nothing to shift to clean electricity generation.
There would need to be a huge disruption in the market and economic activity in 2030 to suddenly accelerate emission reductions enough to reach the Paris goal of zero net emissions by mid century.
In order to reach that goal using a carbon price alone, the price would need to start at $70/tonne and rise to $100/tonne, which, the report concludes, is politically unlikely.
If coal-fired generators were also phased out after a 45-year lifespan and some kind of subsidy offered – like the current renewable energy target to achieve 50% zero emissions generation by 2030 – then the necessary emission reductions could be achieved without a sudden economic shock. Adding energy efficiency policies to the mix would significantly lower the impact on power prices.
Labor has promised an emissions trading scheme as part of the climate policy it will take to an election but will not announce the details. It is expected to hold a post-election inquiry into the electricity industry and the phase-out of coal-fired generators if it wins office.
The Coalition will review its Direct Action climate policy next year and there is a widespread expectation in the business sector that it will have to tighten the baselines on its so-called safeguards mechanism in a way that could eventually turn it into a baseline and credit-style emissions trading scheme.
The report argues that these reviews are critical because if changes aren't made now, it becomes almost impossible to reach net zero emissions by mid century – as is necessary to meet the global goal of keeping temperature rises within 2C.
"The next 18 months are pivotal to our climate and energy future, whoever wins the election," said the Climate Institute's executive director, John Connor.
"Our research shows that a policy package that actively supports both clean energy investment and the orderly replacement of our ageing coal-fired power stations can better manage a timely transition to a cleaner energy supply.
"A baseline and credit, or emissions trading scheme alone, will not be strong or reliable enough to drive the change."
The report found retail power prices would gradually rise between 2020 and 2030 under the recommended scenarios but there is a high degree of uncertainty around the forecasts.
The Climate Institute modelling was commissioned from Jacobs and was part-funded by a cross section of the electricity industry, including GE, AGL and Hydro Tasmania.
The independent Climate Change Authority is undertaking similar modelling for the government.

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• Coal is the future, insists Tony Abbott as UN calls for action on climate change

Climate Change Has Dropped Off The Political Radar (And This Is A Big Problem)

ABC - Mike Steketee*

The aversion to talking about climate change during the election campaign reflects a wider problem: our concern for this issue has fallen even while it has become larger and more urgent.

The so-called pause in global warming was no more than a temporary slowdown in the rate of temperature increase. (Reuters/Kathryn Hansen/NASA)

How much of an issue will climate change be in this year's election?
Not a major one, if Malcolm Turnbull gets his way. He has saddled himself with Tony Abbott's policy as one of the costs of appeasing the conservatives in his ranks.
And while Bill Shorten will be arguing he has a superior policy - but also risking a fear campaign over re-introducing a carbon tax - Labor, too, believes it has bigger fish to fry, such as pushing forward its credentials on education and health.
This reflects a sobering reality: in the last eight years, many Australians' concern over climate change has fallen even while the problem has become larger and more urgent.
The market research company Ipsos has been conducting surveys on the issue since 2007. In that year 54 per cent of people who were presented with a list of issues said climate change was one that needed to be addressed. In the latest report, still to be released, this fell to 38 per cent last year. This is about the same as for the previous two years, although higher than in 2011 and 2012.
Different descriptions on the list for essentially the same issue confirmed the finding, but more strongly. For example, concern about tackling "global warming" fell from 55 per cent to 35 per cent over the eight years. Renewable energy was at the top of the list of issues that needed to be addressed but it also has fallen significantly - from 68 per cent to 51 per cent.
Perhaps people are less concerned because some action has been taken. But if this is true of renewable energy, where the government has set a (reduced) target of 22.5 per cent by 2020 and Labor 50 per cent by 2030, it is hard to argue the same on other issues.
Concern about the need to address rising sea levels has fallen from 29 per cent to 17 per cent over the eight years. Sea levels rose by an estimated global average of 17cm between 1900 and 2005 and according to recent research, nearly 70 per cent of the increase since 1970 was due to human influences - that is, the thermal expansion of the oceans and the melting of glaciers due to burning fossil fuels.

The argument has been that scaring people with stories about bushfires, cyclones and melting glaciers does not work.

We may just be getting started. Though the timing remains uncertain, scientists know that global warming can produce a tipping point at which there are large and irreversible losses of ice, causing sea level rises of metres, not centimetres.
Public concern about climate change in 2007 coincided with the millennium drought and water shortages. It also meant that the Howard government went to the election that year promising an emissions trading scheme, similar to the one that Kevin Rudd undertook to implement as prime minister before getting cold feet and for which Turnbull's support cost him his job as opposition leader.
Howard subsequently sided with Tony Abbott and other conservatives in his party and conceded that it was public pressure that forced his hand in 2007.
That makes the point about our current situation: the message on climate change is not coming through strongly enough to put pressure on the government to adopt a tougher policy.
Often the strategy by interest groups and politicians has been to accentuate the positives, such as a clean energy future and green jobs. The argument has been that scaring people with stories about bushfires, cyclones and melting glaciers does not work.
But it also has meant ceding ground to climate sceptics. They certainly did not worry about selling their message too hard: to the contrary, they thrived on their shrill advocacy to grab attention.
Their success in challenging the overwhelming scientific consensus on the human causes of global warming, as documented by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway in their 2010 book Merchants of Doubt, was to create uncertainty in the public mind and give the impression of a debate between two more or less equal sides.
The signs now are that attitudes are changing. An Essential poll last month found that 63 per cent of people agreed with the statement that there was fairly conclusive evidence that climate change was happening and was caused by human activity. This was up from 56 per cent in November last year. Those who agreed that we might just be witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth's climate fell from 32 per cent to 27 per cent.

The signs of a more receptive public provide an opportunity to elevate climate change from a second order issue during the election campaign.

The yet-to-be-published data from Ipsos shows a jump from 27 per cent to 44 last year in the group of so called "active believers" - those with a strong sense of urgency and concern about climate change. Ipsos research director Jennifer Brook says that although the size of the increase surprised her, there are signs of "a general shift to acceptance that climate change is something that is a threat and needs to be tackled".
It is possible that this also could be mainly caused by another El Nino year. But in the longer run it is becoming harder to ignore the accumulating evidence.
February of this year was the 10th consecutive month of record-breaking global temperatures and, at 1.21C above the average for the last century, it was the largest amount above the average for any month on record. Last year was the hottest year recorded globally and 14 of the 15 hottest years have occurred in the last 15 years.
Unusually high sea surface temperatures in the tropics during last summer have contributed to the longest coral bleaching ever seen on the Great Barrier Reef. Arctic sea ice shrunk to its lowest ever area in January and February.
And so on. It is now clear the so-called pause in global warming seized on by climate sceptics was no more than a temporary slowdown in the rate of temperature increase.
Nevertheless there remains considerable ignorance about climate change. When people were presented in the Ipsos survey with a list of possible causes, the largest number - 55 per cent - chose greenhouse gas emissions from industry and burning of fossil fuels. But 32 per cent picked the hole in the ozone layer and 22 per cent rubbish or litter - neither of which are responsible for warming. (Respondents could pick more than one cause).
This drives home the need to push a stronger message. In the words of last year's Ipsos report:

Despite Australians' acknowledgement of the impacts of climate change, there is clearly a need for consistent, clear and simple information about climate change, especially the causes.

The signs of a more receptive public provide an opportunity to elevate climate change from a second order issue during the election campaign.
There have been major progress in recent years to curbing carbon emissions, particularly in China and notably driven at least in part by public concern over smog produced by industry. Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have stayed flat for the last two years, according to the International Energy Agency. It adds that renewables accounted for about 90 per cent of new electricity generation last year.
But in Australia emissions from electricity generation have continued growing - by 3 per cent in 2014-15 - and emissions overall have increased by 1.3 per cent.
The Ipsos research shows stronger public support for the Coalition's direct action policy than for the emissions trading scheme advocated by Labor perhaps mainly because the former is easier to understand, even though most experts argue that the latter is more effective.
The Grattan Institute this week proposed a pragmatic solution - building on direct action by gradually reducing emission limits and introducing elements of emissions trading. That offers one way, particularly for Turnbull, to harness public opinion to move forward against recalcitrant in his party.

*Mike Steketee is a freelance journalist. He was formerly a columnist and national affairs editor for The Australian.