Sea level rise threatens more than a quarter of a million properties as bill surges to $855b

Climate change means Australia’s love of the coast is facing a multi-billion-dollar reckoning, research suggests, as rising seas threaten to turn its prized coastal lifestyle into a question of who will foot the bill: property owners or governments. In the first nationwide assessment of economic losses from sea level rise, researchers from the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University and Global Environmental and Economic Modelling have found that all coastal states and the Northern Territory face hefty damage bills this century. Australia could face damage costs of more than $850 billion, with more than $274 billion going to property losses and $580 billion spent on land-use damage. Co-author Tom Kompas said the findings were “alarming”, and the economic toll would mount as fossil fuel emissions continued to drive global temperatures higher. “We keep warming the planet … so you get more sea level rise, you get higher tides, higher king tides, higher maximum tides,” the professor of environmental economics and biosecurity at the University of Melbourne said. “You get more intense, and maybe even more frequent storms and storm surges, and that causes localised flooding.” Sea level rise hits hard across the board As temperatures rise, melting ice and
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