Iconic Australian beaches such as Bondi in Sydney and Bells Beach in Victoria are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, environmental scientist Tim Flannery says.
Backing similar concerns from federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and the government's Coasts and Climate Change Council, Professor Flannery said it was clear that beaches could be seriously impacted in the wake of sea level rises of a metre or more over the next century.
"It's hardly surprising that beaches are going to disappear with climate change," he told reporters outside the National Climate Change Forum in Adelaide.
"We've seen single climate events destroy beaches. So this is no surprise, it's simply part of an ongoing trend." Prof Flannery said while it was impossible to predict the future, scientists were able to construct models to consider the impacts of climate change.
"Beaches like Bells Beach and Bondi are vulnerable according to those models to the sort of changes that would be set in place as our climate shifts," he said.
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In its preliminary findings released on Friday the Climate Change Council said national action was needed urgently to cope with the serious threat to Australia's coasts.
"Some coastal places are already subject to periodic damage by floods, storm wave erosion and now even higher king tides," the council said.
"These impacts will be exacerbated by the forces of climate change and are already becoming evident in certain sensitive locations." The council said development around the Australian coast assumed that sea levels and storm events would function as they had in the past.
"We designed our housing estates, business sites and public utilities as if the coastline and tidal levels would not change," it said.
"Such assumptions are no longer valid." Prof Flannery, who is a member of the council, said there was a real need for greater public understanding of the science behind climate change.
People needed to work together.
"This is not an issue that is going to be solved by just the federal government or by state governments," he said. Senator Wong said the work of the council was important in determining how Australia managed the risk of climate change to its coastal communities.
"How do we adapt along our coasts to the risk of climate change," she said.
"How do we adapt now so that we manage those risks, for now and into the future, that's what this is all about.
"The coasts are very important to Australia and we've got to manage them properly."
