Data from a risk analysis firm suggests one in six Gold Coast properties could become uninsurable due to an increased frequency of natural disasters, but the local council does not have a formal climate change strategy.
The analysis projects that 64,000 Gold Coast properties will become 'uninsurable' within the next century due to rising risks of riverine flooding and coastal inundation.
Compiled by the company XDI for the firm Climate Risk, the report analysed how changing climate risks would impact upon insurance premiums across the country.
It projects that more than half of the current addresses in the suburbs of Palm Beach, Broadbeach Waters, and Bundall may face unaffordable insurance premiums by 2100, with potential increases of up to 55.5 per cent by 2050.
"The Gold Coast is an extremely desirable place to live but it's that desirability that's actually the source of some of its weakness," chief executive of XDI Cross Dependency Initiative Rohan Hamden said.
"It's relatively low-lying land that's exposed to both sea level rise and riverine flooding to a significant degree.
"You've got that hinterland running along the back where there's the interaction of that urban fringe with the potential for forest fire."
City of Gold Coast rejects claims it has 'no green credentials'
The City of Gold Coast's climate change strategy expired in 2014 and has not been revised since.
Spokesperson for local conservation group Gecko Environment Council Association said the decision ignored the challenges posed by climate change.
"There's a huge gap there in what needs to be done to encourage people to live more sustainably and for us to be able to protect the very important biodiversity we've got here on the Gold Coast," the association's Louis Levy said.
"This particular council has virtually no green credentials that are worth speaking about."
But Mayor Tom Tate said, while there were no immediate plans to revise the strategy, climate change has been factored into the council's proposed City Plan.
"Our planning reflects the climate change," he said.
"We've got flood modelling to reflect that so we know where we can build up to."
The council's chair of planning, Councillor Cameron Caldwell, declined to comment.
Does the council even need a climate change strategy?
Professor of urban management and planning at Griffith University Paul Burton said the City of Gold Coast's now-defunct climate change strategy "was the product of a different time and a different political regime".
"We can knock out strategies but the danger is that they sit on a shelf and nobody pays any attention to them," he said.
"The old climate strategy is kind of out of date now and is not especially influential."
Professor Burton said the council's Coastal Hazard Adaption Strategy — funded by the State Government — was not "a broader climate change strategy" but instead focused on flooding and inundation risks caused by the projected 80cm sea level rise by 2100.
"It's looking at what happens to the road network. What happens to the light rail? What happens to the airport?" he said.
"If places like that are inundated, then we've got problems."
He said while the council was "doing a pretty good job" of factoring inundation and flooding risks into its City Plan, the Gold Coast's projected population growth of 350,000 people by 2041 presented challenges.
"We've got a South East Queensland Regional Plan that requires the councils in south-east Queensland to accommodate 80 per cent of that growth within the existing urban footprint," Professor Burton said.
"Quite a bit of our existing footprint is in areas that are vulnerable."
Councils 'at the coalface' but bound by State and Federal Governments
Planning Institute of Australia urban planner Julie Brook said while local governments were "at the coalface of climate change" they were bound by State and Federal policy directions.
"The state planning policy certainly has direction and mapping for local governments to use, which talk about a range of natural hazards," she said.
"Local government would then go through a process where they would refine that data and undertake a range of background studies."
But Ms Brook said older developments presented a problem for councils planning to mitigate the risks of climate change.
"Development that we thought was appropriate 50 years ago, we now have different knowledge that may indicate that it's not appropriate at this time," she said.
"For new developments they certainly have a degree of control."
Ultimately, she said councils could only do so much to address climate change.
"[It] affects our economy, our social structure, our settlement pattern, our environment," Ms Brook said.
"What's really important is that everybody is talking about it."
