The coming floods
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2019
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With the sea level rising and storms strengthening thanks to climate change, will much of the world's most valuable real estate find itself underwater?
Justin Rowlatt visits London's main line of defence against the sea - the Thames Barrier - a hugely expensive piece of engineering that will need to be replaced by an even larger barrier later this century, according to its operator Steve East, and coastal risk manager Cantor Mocke.
The oceans will eventually rise by two metres at the very least, says climatologist Ben Strauss of US think tank Climate Central, putting many of the world's great cities at severe risk of inundation. The giant global real estate investment firm Heitman has been looking at which properties in its portfolio are most at risk. Company strategist Brian Klinksiek tells of his fear that the market has yet to price in the cost of the giant storms of the future.
The biggest city in the world vulnerable to the rising waters is Shanghai in China, and flood risk researcher Qian Ke of the Delft University of Technology explains the work she is already doing with the Shanghai city authorities to prepare for the coming storm.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: People are taken ashore in a boat after being rescued from their homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005; Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Kevin Fong. |
| 0:01.8 | And before you get to the podcast you've downloaded, |
| 0:04.1 | I just wanted to tell you about 13 minutes to the moon, which is available now. |
| 0:08.5 | It's the definitive story of the Apollo Moon landings as told to me by some of the people who made it happen. |
| 0:14.0 | That's 13 Minutes to the Moon, a new podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:18.6 | And I'll be back a little later to tell you more about it. |
| 0:33.4 | I'm Justin Rowland, and I've come to one of the world's great rivers, the Thames, for today's Business Daily. |
| 0:40.6 | That's because today's program is all about the risk of flooding and why we don't take it seriously enough. |
| 0:50.1 | I mean, I think that it will take a big storm that hits a really big metropolitan area |
| 0:55.3 | and causes really severe damage. |
| 0:57.2 | C level is rising and that's why I'm working right now to address the problems of climate change. |
| 1:03.4 | Shanghai, Mumbai, Jakarta, Boston's threat in the United States is very much underappreciated. |
| 1:10.7 | So beware, the waters are rising and you need to take action now. Okay. Boston's threat in the United States is very much underappreciated. |
| 1:14.6 | So beware, the waters are rising and you need to take action now if you're going to avoid a soaking both real and financial. |
| 1:18.6 | That is Business Daily here on the BBC World Service. We all know an angel swam with me. |
| 1:41.3 | We all know the story of King Canute, who showed his sycophantic advisers how ridiculous they were |
| 1:47.0 | to claim he could hold back the tides. |
| 1:49.9 | But perhaps they had a point. |
| 1:52.6 | Listen to this. |
| 1:57.6 | That is the sound of human ingenuity made real. |
| 2:06.0 | The sound of the Thames's great tidal barrier going down. |
| 2:11.1 | Steve East is in charge of the day-to-day operation of the barrier for the company that runs it, Thames Tidal Defences. |
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