South Florida business and political leaders must work together to protect the local economy from flooding and climate change, a White House adviser told a room of about 50 people including Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine at a meeting in Brickell.

“There’s probably no place in the country where you can have less of an argument about climate change than South Florida,” said Robert Simon, an adviser in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. “You see it everyday in Miami Beach.”

Flooding and coastal erosion could threaten Miami’s tourism and real estate sectors, he said. And climate change-caused disruption around the world could disrupt the global supply chain, killing the region’s ability to import and export valuable goods.

“Business leaders are getting more and more engaged in discussion about climate change as they see it as a core threat to their future profitability and even their existence,” said Simon, who added that global warming was undeniably the result of human activity.

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Miami Herald