> Coastal cities are unlikely to be flooded in our lifetimes. We're looking at about 1m [1] sea level rise in 100 years, or 50cm in our lifetime.

Thats true, but what most people don't know is that sea level rise don't necessarily mean catastrophic floods. A far bigger problem -- in our lifetime -- is aquifer salination, that is the intrusion of saltwater into coastal freshwater aquifers. This is already happening, in the Nile-valley, Benin and Cyprus but also in Louisiana and California.

When the salinity of coastal Freshwater aquifers reaches a critical level, growing crops in coastal areas can be all but impossible.

"That means coastal cities will face more severe storms, not ending up submerged. [2]"

How does that work? Coastal cities will have more than half a meter more water to deal with and additionally have to face larger more powerful storm surges on top of those 50cm. Don't forget at certain times of the year we see stronger tides.

I also wonder if in 2007, the IPCC were more optimistic about our ability to curb emissions and took into account some of the feedback looks which are kicking in?

Isn't Miami already having problems with flooding at high tide? It doesn't seem like it would take that big of a change from them to have flooding problems when it isn't high tide.

I am wondering if by the time we wake up it's too late for renewable energy. Given that the methane is literally exploding out of the ground in Siberia it already might be too late. I am afraid it might be a likely scenario that the hod outs especially in the US will go from denial to resignation.

Renewables are already huge. Once batteries get a bit better and solar gets a bit cheaper, things will really get going. The deployment won't wait for the world to wake up about global warming.

I agree that renewables are going to be huge but I don't know what companies are going to get rich off of it. What will allow individual companies to build good profit margins? The biggest PV efficiency boost being implemented in the mainstream right now (passivated emitter cell structure) was invented in Australia in the 1980s but the patents expired before it was implemented on a large scale. Core patents for heterojunction cells (another approach to high efficiency on silicon) recently expired too so unrestricted competition can reign there also. The barriers to entry in PV manufacturing are pretty low and look likely to stay that way.

Is wealth going to be made on installing rather than manufacturing hardware? It's also hard to see how e.g. SolarCity protects its margins from competition with other installers. Customer acquisition is a big chunk of costs right now, but if SolarCity spends a bunch on ads to get Americans thinking about rooftop solar that helps competing installers too. Look at the Australian market for a glimpse at the future (much lower installation costs, much higher penetration, broad consumer awareness without further advertising).

EDIT: my own best guess is that if there's going to be a breakout company that achieves high margins on cleantech it's going to be in the area of storage. That's because a patented approach that can seriously lower storage costs or increase cycle life (which amounts to practically the same thing for stationary storage) is an advantage that can't be immediately cloned. OTOH I do not expect protected margins for companies that are lowering costs by scaling, e.g. Tesla's battery gigafactory. Historical reminder: at the beginning of the 2000s China had no solar PV industry to speak of. In less than a decade Chinese manufacturers went to dominating the market because IP barriers were minimal and they could scale larger very quickly once there was a state commitment.

Yeah, I think a lot of places are going to react by building dikes, at least at first, so if you could get into that business...

You have no idea how hard it is to short something do you?

I don't see anything even slightly objectionable, unless ajmurmann were throwing around billions and helping regulate to ensure continuing rising sea levels. This poster is obviously viewing it as an inevitable externality and asking how they can invest profitably. They mention investing in higher land - but since coastal properties will literally disappear underwater, there could be other ways to profit. Additionally, solar power (which might be heavily subsidized), electric cars, even something insane like fusion-powered electric airplanes (a pipe dream, it's ridiculous) would all be reasonable answers. I mention the airplane thing as jetliners are a leading cause of Co2 emissions which is thougth responsible for this rising sea level. -- as literally trillions of dollars in seaside property become uninhabitable due to flooding (literally trillions, this is not an exaggeration) society might decide to instead spend $10,000,000,000,000 (that's $10 trillion) to halt it today. It's reasonable for OP to ask how given that society will be feeling a push to spend $10,000,000,000,000 - how he/she can be better off with this analysis done today.

Zero objection and there is no moral component whatsoever to their question.

EDIT:

I'd like someone to explain the downvoting behavior (of my comment). As multiple of my examples show, the investment can be in alternative energy, for example, when obscene expanses of valuable coastland are being flooded and people are simply 'forced' to act. I don't understand why the question or my defense of it were downvoted.

Trying to make a profit is the most effective way of helping people.

I hope that it is NOT sarcasm.

I'm not saying I want to make climate change worse or lobby for it out anything. Unfortunately climate change is happening and there are indicators that we already crossed the line to runaway climate change (methane coming out of the permafrost). Why should I not try to make a profit from this fact as long as I don't make it worse? How is this different than running a funeral home?

I don't think it is: we are on HN :-/