National leadership and urgent action are needed to protect Australia's coastal communities from climate change, a new report says.The parliamentary committee report, Managing Our Coastal Zone in a Changing Climate The Time to Act is Now, tabled last night, said there was uncertainty about how high sea levels would rise, but consensus was they would be 50cm to 1m higher by 2010 than they were in 1990.
''Many thousands of kilometres of the Australian coastline have been identified as at risk from the threat of rising sea levels and extreme weather events due to the impacts of climate change. The concentration of Australia's population and infrastructure along the coast makes our nation particularly vulnerable to the coastal erosion and inundation that will accompany increases in sea level,'' it said. Some 80per cent of Australians lived in a coastal zone and increasing population growth along the coastline ''and resulting intensification of land use is increasing pressure on the environment in many areas''.
The report noted concerns about whether insurers would continue to fully cover properties in higher-risk areas, and said, ''Further investigation of this important matter is urgently required.'' The committee wants a Productivity Commission inquiry into the insurance issues.
Among its 47 recommendations, it also called for an urgent Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into legal issues, particularly to clarify whether public authorities were liable for ''acting or not acting in terms of climate change adaptation and possible coastal hazards'' and whether councils should be broadly indemnified.
''Councils need to develop clearly defined policies to deal with the impacts of climate change and make the risks of climate change impacts an explicit part of their decision-making criteria to assist in limiting their potential exposure to legal action,'' the report said.
The inquiry would also look at liability issues if home owners tried to protect their properties from the impact of climate change.
It comes after the NSW Government announced last week measures that give property owners greater rights to build barriers against coastal erosion, even if councils refused permission.
The committee wants more consistency between jurisdictions in how they deal with climate change and planning in coastal areas. ''The committee heard repeatedly ... that coastal development and population pressures were having a dramatic impact on the coastal environment and poor coastal land use planning practices were a significant factor.
''[The] cumulative impacts of many small decisions taken along the coast are clearly not being dealt with effectively under current federal and state environmental regimes. This also requires urgent attention.''
The committee said governments should consider ''limits on catchment development, based on resource condition targets and supported by water quality monitoring; and limits or constraints on development in areas of critical connectivity or high ecological value to manage development and population growth in coastal communities and catchments''.
It also wants a comprehensive national assessment of infrastructure vulnerable to rising sea levels and associated extreme events.
The committee said the impact of climate change on coastal areas was of national importance and ''the time to act is now''.
It called for a national coastal zone database and for a study on how other countries manage coastal areas. It said more funding was needed for coastal based climate-change research, particularly looking at projections for how far sea levels will rise, extreme weather and ocean acidification.
There was also a need for ''urgent action to protect Australians from the threats of dengue fever and [the similar] chikungunya virus'', it said.
The report also called for an assessment of the vulnerability of Kakadu National Park's wetlands.