Managed coastal retreatRaising Tough Questions about Retreat from Rising Seas

By Sarah Fecht

Published 18 July 2019

As the global thermostat climbs and polar ice melts, the oceans are swelling and swallowing up coastlines. By some calculations, rising seas could displace 13 million Americans by 2100. While some communities are attempting to adapt in place with elevated buildings and seawalls to divert water, relocation appears inevitable for many.

As the global thermostat climbs and polar ice melts, the oceans are swelling and swallowing up coastlines. By some calculations, rising seas could displace 13 million Americans by 2100. Nearly every state in the U.S. will be affected by people migrating in and out.

During three days in June, the Managed Retreat conference (organized by the Earth Institute at Columbia University) brought together scientists, politicians, community members, and lawyers to discuss what it means for people, infrastructure, and ecosystems as risings seas push back coastlines around the world. In panels — many packed to overflowing — experts of all kinds voiced their concerns and raised important questions about what to do and how to minimize the damages.

Many of the questions were technical. When should a coastal community move? Where should they go? Who pays for relocation or adaptation in place? How do you get people out of harm’s way without an economic collapse?

Then there were the bigger questions — like how do you make sure that coastal retreat doesn’t splinter communities and exacerbate inequalities?

“A lot of the grand questions center around the societal solutions,” said climatologist Radley Horton, who helped to organize the conference. “The climate science is almost the easy part.”

What’s Fair?
Coastal retreat is inherently unequal. Many of the communities and nations that will be underwater in the next few decades aren’t responsible for the bulk of the emissions that are causing ice to melt and seas to rise — like the small island nation of Kiribati in the Pacific, or the native Alaskan communities that Robin Bronen from the Alaska Institute for Justice works with. During a session on Environmental Justice and Equity, Bronen opened her talk by saying, “I hope that, when you leave this room today, that you think about your greenhouse gas emissions that are causing these people to lose the places that they love and call home.”