Climate choices, and resulting costs, fall to cities and towns
While ocean-front residents and the central government remain skeptical, cities and towns warn of sea’s intrusion
MBUCASIA BEACH, Australia ayor Greg Williamson crunched through the dead branches and kicked the sand. His government had planted trees near the shore to protect this northern Australian beach community from the effects of climate change, but someone had cut them down, apparently for a better view.
“It looks to me like they started at the beach and worked their way back,” he said, pointing to 18 felled trees. “Bloody fools — look, you can still see the saw marks.
“What they don’t realize,” he added, “is that if these dunes aren’t here, they’re not going to have a house or a view.”
When international leaders met last month at the United Nations to discuss climate change, and when millions of young protesters took to the streets, the focus was on sweeping global action. But for much of the world, the response to climate change looks more like the parochial struggles of Williamson: smalltown leaders laboring to persuade a skeptical public about complex science and expensive decisions.
In few places is the challenge of adapting to climate change more immediate than in Australia, where 80 percent of the population lives within a few dozen miles of a coastline susceptible to rising seas and more punishing storms, and where the arid interior bakes under record temperatures.
The conservative government has mostly dismissed calls for action on climate change, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently arguing that young activists like Greta Thunberg are causing “needless anxiety.” It’s a reversal that resembles what is happening in the United States, where the Trump White House has rejected established climate science, and cities like Miami have paid for their own coastal protection.
But the absence of national leadership does not change reality. It just puts more pressure on mayors and councils, including those in less populated areas, forcing them to become the climate infantry — the grunts who push through solutions on their own.
In Australia, they are the ones grappling with roads falling into the sea, with disputes over home insurance as costs rise, and with who will pay for preventive measures like taller barriers at marinas.
They are also managing little-noticed budget ramifications, like the hiring of flooding consultants and the quicker depreciation in value of fleets of cars battered by increased salt and sand.
And that is just along the coast. Farther inland, local governments are trying to become experts in drought-monitoring technology, while areas that had never thought much about fire — even in rainforests — are suddenly examining worst-case scenarios. Among mayors, there is anger about the burden, said Deana Earhart, who runs a state-level adaptation program. The group is helping Mackay, the sprawling area of 180,000 people and 32 beaches that Williamson leads, and other regional councils in the state of Queensland.
“They understand this is something they are going to have to deal with,” Earhart said. “It’s not going away, and it involves a thousand small decisions.”
In the past two years, there were 11 weather events in the state that authorities classified as major, according to the Queensland Reconstruction Authority, and 61 councils are dealing with infrastructure recovery projects.
“We’re finding the intensity and frequency of these events is increasing, and it is really creating a challenge not only in how we respond but also how we recover,” said Brendan Moon, the authority’s chief executive.
Before Williamson’s election in 2016, the council mostly acted on its own. The parks and gardens department cleared invasive plants on the shoreline, thickened vegetation and put in fences and paths to control foot traffic, all to protect against the effects of climate change.
The backlash was severe. With saplings blocking the view of many homeowners, mysterious tree slashings hit night after night.
In 2017, officials tallied more than 30 separate acts of tree clearing.
Over the past year, Williamson, a fifth-generation Mackay local, has tried more outreach and education, meeting frequently with residents to discuss why the trees are needed, and whether a lighter mix of vegetation might be allowed for partial ocean views.
But he has not backed down. “No one has all the answers,” he said, “but what we do know is that you can’t leave beaches to themselves and expect them to stay as they are.”
The latest vandalism in Bucasia Beach is especially galling, he said, because he thought progress was being made.
And in interviews with a dozen residents, there was more support for the council’s efforts than the tree stumps suggest.
Gary Hardiman, 46, a miner living in a bungalow near the clearing, said he wished he knew who was responsible so he could tell the vandal. “We need the trees there. If you knock them down, we’ll lose the beach.”