Modelling has suggested 18 square kilometres of the Bega Valley Shire will be impacted by sea level rise by 2100.
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Council's director of community, environment and planning Alice Howe made the comment when discussing the draft Bega Valley Shire Climate Resilience Strategy 2050, which states 50 per cent of the region's population lives within 1.5km of the coast.
Dr Howe said in the strategy council was working with the current benchmark of 0.4metre sea rise by 2050 and 0.9metres by 2100.
At the councillors' meeting on Wednesday, they approved the strategy to go on display and have called for the public to comment on it as well as provide ideas of other angles council should consider.
"What we really want to know is what are people across the shire prepared to invest in terms of their own time, their own expertise, their own capital," Dr Howe said.
The draft document proposes a resilience approach to addressing projected impacts of climate change across the shire, with Dr Howe saying the two major risks council primarily was considering were bushfires and sea level rise.
She said council had considered numerous ideas on how to make the shire more resilient.
Examples of these included green town centres that could mimimise heat stress, support for mental health services for farmers struggling with the drought, electric vehicles as they will become a bigger part of council's fleet in the future, increasing the shire's water storage capacity, and as floods will make the region more vulnerable to impacts of council's supply chain there was a need to become more self-sufficient.
Dr Howe said any potential closure of Bega Cheese from the impacts of climate change on the local dairy industry had been "indirectly considered" by council, as it was thinking of opportunities to diversify the industrial base of the region so it was not in one core industry.
"We can't rely on one single industry," she said.
For instance she said blue carbon - which is carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems - could be explored, such as using kelp beds to sequester carbon and generate material to use in the manufacturing of products.
But there were many factors outside of council's control, she said, such as the dam on Brown Mountain that was used for electricity supply, limiting irrigation in the shire.
Also, while she said management of state forests were the NSW government's responsibility, at some point they would have to consider whether or not it was more profitable to use forests as for carbon sequestration rather than woodchips.
There has much debate between the shire's councillors over including the words "climate emergency" in the strategy, as they had voted to use the phrase before a rescission motion was launched on the matter, which was ultimately defeated.
"It's influenced the language with the actions and the timing in the actions," Dr Howe said.
She said an amendment to Wednesday's motion from Cr Mitchell Nadin meant council staff would provide information in their final report, to be released in the first quarter of next year, including the legal and financial implications of the strategy.
It will be a "high level analysis, not a detailed costing", she said.
The draft strategy will be on exhibition for a minimum of 42 days from November 4.