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Climate Change and Coastal Zone Management

Event
Date
Location
Berlin, Germany
Speaker
Mike Orbach

On 14 October 2008, an Ecologic Dinner Dialogue was held in honour of Dr. Michael K. Orbach. Mike Orbach is Professor of the Practice of Marine Affairs and Policy and Director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory at the Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment (Beaufort, North Carolina, USA). The Dinner Dialogue focused on climate change impacts on coastal zones and associated policy responses.

Having visited different coastal regions over the world, Mike Orbach characterised three different types of coastal zone settlement. Which of these settlements will prove to be most resilient to sea level rise is a question that yet has to be answered.

The German North Sea coast is characterised by a history of many centuries of coastal alteration, which took place at a small pace. The communities living there are relatively uniform.

The U.S., in contrast, has seen a comparably short history of coastal zone settlement. The environment was altered quickly in a top-down manner. In places like New Orleans, the population is split up into different communities, a fact which contributed to the difficulties to cope with the hurricane “Katrina” in 2005.

In East Asia, finally, a long history of traditional use with little alteration has ceded a highly dynamic development, in which settlements like Hong Kong have been, and are being, more and more expanded into the sea. Significant development started about the time when in the U.S., there was already a strong call from the environmentalist movement to stop further coastal alteration.

As a fourth example, one may add coastal areas such as those of Egypt or Bangladesh, which are very densely inhabited by a population disposing of very little means to react to sea level rise. It was observed that paradoxically, instances occur where poor communities prove more adaptable than the rich: They may move more quickly and easily away from risk zones since they are not bound by large investments in buildings and infrastructure. This of course changes in no way the urgent need to develop structures that ensure effective support to poor populations losing their land to the sea. In addition to the potential role of the UN (e.g. via the Adaptation Fund under the Kyoto Protocol), some examples for bilateral solutions are emerging (e.g. between India and the Maldives).

The discussion further centered on the possibilities for public authorities to steer settlement and industry locations, and the threats that land losses impose on coastal and marine ecosystems, e.g. when industrial sites or protected areas are inundated.

In the U.S., the wrong incentive was given in the past by providing public insurance for building in risky areas. Although there have been no such direct incentives in Germany, the decision by the Federal Government to provide for compensation for those not insured after the Elbe flood in 2002 set a difficult precedent for future cases. Developing long-term, systemic thinking is needed as much as involving the whole society in order to raise risk awareness and build acceptance for political and planning decisions. All participants agreed that there is no point in trading off adaptation against mitigation, nor may climate change be addressed in isolation from other important issues, such as biological diversity. As it was put during the discussion: “Adaptation is necessary already now, but if we do not tackle the causes of climate change, then it will become unmanageable”.

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Speaker
Mike Orbach
Date
Location
Berlin, Germany
Keywords
Source URL: https://www.ecologic.eu/2508