Real Estate Agents Threaten Climate Change Scientist

A climate change scientist says real estate agents have threatened to make his life difficult if he continues to publish research about how vulnerable particular properties are to rising sea levels and coastal erosion.

Professor Andrew Pitman works at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.

He says real estate agents do not like potential buyers asking questions about climate change based on his research.

Professor Pitman has told the ABC's 702 program, several agents have asked him to stop talking about how vulnerable certain properties are.

"More explicitly [they said] 'we're nervous about our particular market niche in a particular suburb'," he said.

"And, 'we are going to start making your life difficult if you keep pointing to climate change affecting our particular location'."

Professor Pitman says he will now change the way he refers to his research even though the science is robust.

"I feel fairly secure in general statements about sea level rise and general statements about properties that are very close to the water being more vulnerable," he said.

"But I won't now point to specific locations as being a particularly sensitive, although it's not very difficult to find out what those [properties] would be."

He says he suspects the owners of beachfront properties that are at risk, or shoreline properties that are already frequently flooded, already know that they are at risk from rising sea levels.