Business leaders must step up, take action on sea-level rise
At last year’s annual Southeast Florida Regional Climate Leadership Summit, we were encouraged when business leaders not only acknowledged the threat sea-level rise poses to the region, but the role they need to play in addressing it. It was a major step forward in attracting the financial and political muscle needed to prepare the region for rising waters.
A year later, the three major chambers of commerce from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties are looking to make good on that promise. Earlier this year, the business groups signed an agreement to “act and collaborate as a region” on the issue of sea-level rise, Dennis Grady, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beaches, recently told the Post Editorial Board.
“As business organizations, we realized that we could no longer afford to get bogged down by parochialism, not on this issue,” Grady said. “Sea-level rise is a regional problem... and we are all in agreement that we need to attack it that way; with a laser point, not a shotgun blast.”
Grady said the message of the Post’s collaborative series — The Invading Sea — with the Miami Herald, South Florida Sun Sentinel and WLRN Public Radio “was not lost on us.”
“From a regional standpoint, we now know that sea-level rise has to be at the top of our thought process in terms of future business growth and development.”
That should please the scores of climate science and government leaders who attended last week’s leadership summit at the Miami Beach Convention Center. It was hosted by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact.
You’d hardly be blamed for thinking that the bulk of the business community has been napping on the biggest existential threat facing our region, because we have yet to hear a full-throated call for action. And frankly, besides those who participated in a panel discussion, we’d have liked to have seen more business leaders attending the conference.
For real estate is a multibilliondollar industry in South Florida. From downtown Miami to Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach, cranes dot the downtown skylines amid a new construction boom. And few in the business community want to see a halt to that. We are talking jobs, after all. And for local governments, tax revenue.
When it comes to sea-level rise, however, our region is the tip of the spear. As we’ve said previously, it’s projected that in South Florida, the water will rise 2 feet by 2060, endangering more than $14 billion of real estate, according to the nonprofit research group Climate Central. Of the 25 U.S. cities most vulnerable to sea-level rise, 22 are in Florida.
The threat from rising seas is not only real and visible, but tangible when it comes to our tax dollars: Coastal flooding like that seen during the October full moon in Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and other communities. Saltwater intrusion into Broward drinking wells. Tens of millions of dollars spent annually on beach re-nourishment just by Palm Beach and other counties.
Enter the Climate Change Compact, now entering its 10th year, a collaborative effort between Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties created in response to this environmental and economic threat. The idea was to get the four Florida counties — and their municipalities — with arguably the most to lose to work together on resilience, mitigation and adaptation strategies.
There has been success — mostly on the government side. Each county now has a resiliency officer, whose job is to help the region prepare for the effects of sea level rise and storm surge.
Broward, for example, is looking at a requirement to raise sea walls to four feet. It’s also mapped the underground water table, which is rising along with ocean water.
To address these issues the right way, local governments must work hand-inglove with local businesses. Grady says we should see more action and input from the Greater Fort Lauderdale and Greater Miami chambers, as well as his own.
To help, city and county governments should arm business leaders with the kind of details they need to make a case to their colleagues, state organizations and political leaders.
A good place to start, as we’ve said before, is to get an answer to this question: what level of sea rise is Florida planning for?
And in Washington, the focus should be on getting agreement to refurbish the region’s 70-year-old flood control network, which is nearing its brim.
“We’re beyond issue proclamation time,” Grady told the Post Editorial Board. “We’re committed to going to Washington, Tallahassee, wherever we need to get this issue in front of the right people: that our region is at great risk from sea level rise.”
That’s a welcome start.