National Coastal Management Plan must include managed retreat, says Climatologist

Vivienne Clarke

Climatologist Professor Peter Thorne has warned that if the National Coastal Management Plan does not include a managed retreat “we’re fooling ourselves”.

The year 2023 had been shocking, even climate scientists had been surprised at what was happening globally and even regionally in Ireland, he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

Weather events this year had been “gobsmacking” he said.

“If you took a person, if we had a time machine, we obviously don't. But if we had a time machine and we could pluck someone from 1900 and place them in today, many aspects of today's weather would not be recognisable to them. And that is scary. And that's just the start of this.

“Until we cease emitting heat trapping gases, greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Things will get more and more unusual to that person from 1900.

“We're not just on reducing emissions, although that's clearly key. We need to take adaptation seriously. We need to unblock planning issues. We need to defend people. We also need to recognise that the floods, for example, are not just climate change.

"It's also how we're misusing the land. We're compacting the land by overgrazing of farmland. We've red tape, all kinds of flood defences that are natural.”

Prof Thorne said he welcomed the National Coastal Management Plan but he warned “we cannot protect everything and everywhere from climate change, from coastal evolution.”

“We need to decide which parts we want to defend. Clearly, we want to defend Dublin City. We can't defend everything. We can't defend everywhere. And if the final coastal management plan doesn't have a managed retreat, we're fooling ourselves.”