Climate change is a remorseless threat to the world’s coasts
The world is not ready for the sea levels it will face
IMAGINE A HUGE horizontal A-frame: a recumbent, two-dimensional Eiffel Tower. Pin a pivot through its tip, so it can swivel around 90 degrees. Then add to its splayed feet something like the rocker of a rocking chair, but 210 metres long, 22 metres high and 15 metres wide. Now double it: picture, across a 360-metre-wide canal, its mirror image. Paint all their 13,500 tonnes of steel glistening white.
What you have imagined, the Dutch have built. When the Maeslant barrier (pictured) is open, it allows ships as large as any ever built to pass along the canal to Rotterdam, Europe’s biggest port. When closed, it protects that city—80% of which sits below sea level—from the worst storm surges the North Sea can throw at it.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Higher tide"
From the August 17th 2019 edition
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