Sea level hikes in England to jeopardize 200k homes by 2050

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The climate crisis and its consequences will have grave repercussions on Britons, with a study conducted by researchers at the Tyndall Centre of the University of East Anglia projecting that rising sea levels will put around 200,000 coastal homes at risk in England by 2050.

The shocking figure only represents homes that may not end up being saved because it would be very expensive to try and salvage them by means of establishing seawalls, for example. 

The value of homes at risk is estimated at around tens of billions of British pounds, and the rising sea levels and their repercussions of sweeping floods are now almost inevitable due to the climate rapidly deteriorating.

The study came after Environment Agency chief Sir James Bevan warned last week that many homes are not worth salvaging due to it being either impossible or too costly, which would push whole communities out of the coastal area inland.

"In the long term, climate change means that some of our communities - both in this country and around the world - cannot stay where they are," Sir Bevan explained, highlighting the dangers climate change bears for humanity.

"There is no coming back for land that coastal erosion has taken away or which a rising sea level has put permanently or frequently under water."

By 2050, it is expected that sea levels around the English coast will be 35cm higher than their current level, which will be accompanied by eroding foreshores that, in turn, lead to higher waves.

"Significant sea level rise is now inevitable. For many of our larger cities at the coast, protection will continue to be provided, but for some coastal communities, this may not be possible," the lead author of the peer-reviewed study, Paul Sayers, said. "We need a serious national debate about the scale of the threat to these communities and what represents a fair and sustainable response, including how to help people to relocate."

The whopping figure of just under a quarter million homes at risk was not always this high, as previous estimates were much lower. Government estimates, however, have not been up to date with climate science and the daily updates on dangers posed to the environment.

In 2018, the Committee on Climate Change warned that more than 30% of the UK coastline was in danger due to rising sea levels exacerbated by the deterioration of the climate.

Check out: The Cost of Climate Change

Following a May meeting, more than 70 non-governmental organizations and activist groups from around the world formed a "carbon bomb defusal" network to share expertise and resources in the fight to stop the projects and prevent the catastrophic climate breakdown they would cause.

195 carbon bombs, massive oil and gas projects that would each emit at least a billion tons of CO2 over their lifetimes, amounting to roughly 18 years of current global CO2 emissions, and about 60% of these have already started pumping, ignoring the risks they pose to the already fragile climate.

With 22 carbon bombs spanning the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the foothills of Colorado's Front Range and the Permian Basin, the United States is the leading source of emissions from these megaprojects. They have the potential to emit 140 billion tons of CO2, nearly four times what the entire world emits each year.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, with 107 billion tons, is the second-largest potential emitter after the United States, followed by Russia, Qatar, Iraq, Canada, China, and Brazil.