By Sverre Leroy and Paul Chinowsky

New Jersey must spend at least $25 billion in the next five to ten years to safeguard coastal communities from unavoidable, near-term sea-level rise. A price tag of that size represents more than a quarter of the state’s entire annual budget.

Unfortunately, New Jersey is not alone. According to our analysis, which can be found in a new study by the Center for Climate Integrity, coastal communities in the contiguous U.S. alone will collectively spend upwards of $400 billion in the coming years on sea-level rise adaptation.

This is approaching the cost of the original interstate highway system and will require the construction of more than 50,000 miles of coastal barriers in 22 states, including New Jersey, in half the time it took to create the nation’s iconic roadway network.

But while failing to act will likely cost far more, these costs — as shocking as they are —still only represent a fraction of the total cost to protect the state from a much wider range of climate impacts. From extreme weather events, severe heat, increased precipitation and flooding to growing impacts on ecosystem and human health, and more, New Jersey — which suffered close to $40 billion in damages from Superstorm Sandy — is already familiar with some of those costs.

Polluters should pay

Not many states or municipalities have begun to address this looming budget and climate crisis. As it stands, taxpayers will be expected to bear the brunt of the expense. This study sounds the alarm for the public and local policymakers to start discussing how and who should pay for these rising costs: taxpayers or polluters?

A series of new and active climate liability lawsuits across the country could answer that question.

Since 2017, more than a dozen localities and one state have sued companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and others to recover taxpayer dollars for damages knowingly caused by oil and gas companies.

The lawsuits, which are modeled after similar suits filed against Big Tobacco in the 90s, followed explosive investigative coverage by reporters at InsideClimate News and the Columbia Journalism School with the Los Angeles Times uncovered evidence that the American Petroleum Institute and much of the entire oil and gas industry knew at least 50 years ago that burning fossil fuels was the primary cause of climate change and would produce catastrophic impacts without action.

Despite knowing the harms their product would cause, climate polluters like Shell and Exxon chose to manufacture doubt where there was none and obstruct any action to address the problem. This obstruction by Big Oil has cost society decades of time to act and now will cost U.S. coastal communities hundreds of billions of dollars to defend against the damage.

What’s next?

First, coastal communities need to come up with a plan to address the sea-level rise that is at their doorstep. New Jersey is already ahead of the game there. Then these communities need to decide how and who will pay for these new and immediate costs.

If polluters escape responsibility and are allowed to pay nothing, it is very unlikely that the required defenses will be built. Many communities, particularly rural locales with small tax bases, will be forced to retreat or be slowly swallowed up by the sea.

That’s neither fair, nor acceptable. New Jersey must take the threat posed by climate change seriously and make investments to weather the storm, but taxpayers should not have to bear the burden alone. Big Oil knowingly caused our climate crisis. They should pay their fair share for the damages.

Sverre Leroy, PhD, is a climate scientist and lead analyst at the Center for Climate Integrity.

Paul Chinowsky, PhD, is the CEO Resilient Analytics, and an engineer and director of the environmental design program at the college of engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.

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