Expert warns Ireland must prepare ‘evacuation’ plans for coastal areas amid climate change

An expert has warned protections are 'urgently' needed

Experts are warning that plans for 'emergency coastal evacuations' are needed 'urgently'.

Prof Iris Moller told the Irish Times: “There has been no time in the past when we have built so close to the coast and in such low-lying areas and where so many people have been at risk."

Moller spoke in response to new analysis from World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which says the Earth is being pushed beyond its limits and the world is taking in more heat than it can shed.

This means that the oceans will absorb a lot of the excess heat, but in turn this means sea levels are rising at a rate more rapidly than ever previously recorded.

Moller, a a coastal geomorphologist at Trinity College Dublin, said that if Storm Chandra had occurred during a high spring tide, “the situation would have been many times worse in coastal towns and cities, including Dublin”.

“The state of the global climate suggests that it is only a matter of time before we see this combination of extreme river and coastal flooding on the Irish east coast," she added.

“We must urgently implement a range of measures to deal with this risk via nature-based solutions, coastal protection measures and emergency evacuation processes, as well as radically switching away from fossil fuels.”

The WMO State of the World Climate report warned that all indicators of climate change showed the world is going in the wrong direction, with 2015-2025 being the hottest 11 years on record.

Sea levels are 23cm higher than they were in 1900, and 11cm higher than they were 30 years ago.

“Because warming of the oceans will continue for centuries even if emissions of greenhouse gases cease, sea level will continue to rise on the same timescale,” the report said.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned the climate is in a "state of emergency", and that the Earth is being "pushed beyond its limits."

“These findings are not confined to charts and graphs. They are written into the daily lives of people,” he said.

“In families struggling as droughts and storms drive up food prices; in workers pushed to the brink by extreme heat; in farmers watching crops wither; in communities and homes swept away by floods.

“Humanity has just endured the 11 hottest years on record. When history repeats itself 11 times it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act.”