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Seminar: Business Continuity on Port Phillip Bay

  • Karstens Conference Centre 123 Queen Street Melbourne, VIC, 3000 Australia (map)

On May 5, 2011 Climate Alliance hosted a very successful seminar that considered the risks from sea-level rise to businesses with assets located near Port Phillip Bay. Dr John Church was the Keynote speaker and he provided an overview of the state of the science that supports the current projections. Representatives from the legal, insurance, mapping and transport industries contributed to a very informative and insightful afternoon.

Speakers:

Dr John Church, CSIRO
Robert Jamieson, Blake Dawson
Caryn Anderson, Port of Melbourne Corporation
Graeme Kernich, Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information
Jan van der Schalk, Windrisk Solutions
Mark Versteden, First Secretary of the Netherlands Embassy

As if to underscore the discussions, on 23 May 2011, the Government’s Climate Commission released a report summarising the state of the climate change science. The report drew heavily on the work of Dr John Church. 

See here for a report from The Age newspaper:
Sea levels could rise a metre by 2100, May 23, 2011

Excerpt from the Climate Commission’s Report:
Figure 7 shows a comparison of the observed sea-level rise to projections from climate models, which first became available in 1990 and were summarised in the two most recent IPCC reports (2001; 2007a). Observed sea level since 1993 is tracking near the upper end of the model projections, pointing towards significant risks of sea-level related impacts in the 21st century (see Section 2.1).

Source: Page 11, THE CRITICAL DECADE,  May 23, 2011
Climate science, risks and responses
http://climatecommission.govspace.gov.au/files/2011/05/4108-CC-Science-Update-PRINT-CHANGES.pdf