Hot in the city - Four Degrees of Global Warming - page 161

will have a shorter lifespan than others - building a carport will create a less
enduring infrastructure legacy than siting a new coastal suburb - and therefore
these frameworks set a lower benchmark for sea level rise by 2040 and 2050. The
implications of these reforms are potentially significant. For example, the State
Planning Policy 3/11 : Coastal Protection (Queensland) (suspended) mapped high
and medium coastal hazard areas in a way that places about 10 per cent of all
Queensland properties within those designations (Property Council of Australia,
2011) and therefore made these subject to restrictions on future development.
Strong opposition from the property industry and the election of a new state
government resulted in the suspension of the Coastal SPP after only eight
months, and its replacement with the Draft Coastal Protection State Planning
Regulatory Provision Protecting the Coastal Environment (State of Queensland,
2012), which contains no formal planning benchmark or mapping of coastal
hazard areas.
While several instruments refer to the importance of retreat as an option
and a few voluntary buyback schemes are emerging, there is little evidence of
mandatory or unfunded retreat being adopted yet. The approach currently being
advocated is to allow for longer-term staged retreat by prohibiting new devel-
opment or intensification in high hazard areas or only allowing development
with a limited life-span (State of Victoria, 2008; State of NSW, 2010 [repealed];
Abel et al., 2011; State of Queensland, 2011). The Queensland Coastal Plan
required local authorities to prepare a coastal hazard adaptation strategy for
urban areas that are projected to be located within a high hazard area by 2100 and
incorporate the strategy into relevant local planning instruments. The strategy
was required to indicate mitigation works or actions that would be undertaken,
with costs, funding arrangements and timelines. In developing the strategy,
the authority must assess the cost effectiveness of a range of options, including
retreat, avoidance and defence (State of Queensland, 2011). These requirements
are now under review following the suspension of the entire Queensland Coastal
Plan .
Bushfire
The impacts of climate change on coastal hazards will be both chronic, in
the form of gradual inundation through sea level rise, and acute, through
exacerbation of storm surge, inundation and erosion events. By contrast, the
likely impact of climate change on bushfire risks is an increase in the potential
frequency and severity of individual bushfire events (see Chapter 3 ). This makes
it harder to incorporate climate change impacts into bushfire planning.
All jurisdictions have general planning controls on development in bushfire-
prone areas (State of Queensland, 2003; State of NSW 2006; State of WA 2006,
2010; ACT, 2008; State of SA 2009; State of Victoria, 2011; State of Tasmania,
2012;) and all require compliance with the Building Code of Australia and
AS3959 - Construction of Buildings in Bushfire Prone Areas. Bushfire-prone
areas are generally mapped spatially or defined in relation to the proximity of