Townsville homes may become 'uninsurable' due to flooding from climate change

Houses in flood-hit Townsville and other parts of north Queensland are “on track to become uninsurable”, according to analysis that shows the risk to homes from flooding will more than double under climate change.

 Homeowners in north Queensland will find difficulty
getting insurance as flood risk rises with climate change. 

The modelling, based on current global emissions trajectories, says flooding in Townsville is already about 20% more to likely to occur than previously thought. The total flood risk in the region is likely to increase by 130% by the end of the century.

Climate Valuation, which advises the property and finance industry, said the result would be that more homes would find flood cover difficult to obtain and too expensive.

Home and business owners have reported being caught out by the scale of this month’s flooding in Townsville. Many say they did not have specific flood cover, and that the city planning codes rated properties outside the “one in 100 years” flood zone as effectively flood-free.

Read the story from The Guardian by Ben Smee - “Townsville homes may become 'uninsurable' due to flooding from climate change.”

‘Mountains and mountains of plastic': life on Cambodia's polluted coast

Looking down into the water that lies beneath the ramshackle houses of Sihanouk, Cambodia, it is hard to imagine that the sea is there at all. Instead, there is dense layer upon layer of plastic waste clogging the water, piling up around poles that support the wooden homes, carpeting the beach.

Photographs from Sihanouk in the country’s south west
reveal locals living amid a staggering tide of plastic pollution

New images of from Sihanouk, in the country’s south west, depict in horrifying detail the extent of Cambodia’s growing problem of plastic pollution and how the tide of unbiodegradable rubbish has become part of the fabric of the lives of communities living in poverty.

Read the story by Hannah Ellis-Peterson from The Guardian - “‘Mountains and mountains of plastic': life on Cambodia's polluted coast.”