My reading is different:
* Paper says, sea level will rise, with many areas vulnerable
* Newspaper exaggerates to say, "OMG people will be at the bottom of the sea"
* Article says, well this one bit of global warming we can deal with, as we always did. Dikes will be built, drainage added, and it's all kinda cheap
I don't think they argue against combating climate change.
Another way to put it: let's worry first about the climate change issues we cannot mitigate.
Dikes are not cheap to build and maintain, securing the dutch coasts cost ran up to $13 billion in 2013. That cover about 700km of coast lines & river sides.
Not sure how many kilometers of dikes will be needed, but based on http://world.bymap.org/Coastlines.html even covering 10% of the coast lines will cost more about $1 trillion.
It’s even worse than that. The land he’s proposing to secure with dikes includes the land area of all of the island nations in the world. None of those nations can afford that. There’s a very subtle racism at play in saying “look the dutch did it so it must be easy.“ The reality is that a lot of poor island nations are going to be destroyed by the actions of a few wealthy nations, and that isn’t the story you hear often. We will lose a ton of arable land. And much of the biodiversity we cherish today will be extinct. There are a lot of children yet to be born to whom we will owe an apology for so thoroughly wrecking the planet.
Which would have been a good article, but that's definitely not all the article was saying, since the author was clearly arguing against CO2-emission reduction strategies (see the very opening paragraph).
Are you referring to this bit: "[...] push policymakers toward excessively expensive measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty and protect them with simple infrastructure. [...]"?
I think there is a point to be made. I'm no climate change denier. But with mitigating the effects of climate change, we are trading an up-front cost today against a benefit in the future. Both the up-front cost and the future benefit must be fairly estimated, as much as we can.
Claims like "We must cut carbon emissions to 0 or South Vietnam will be eradicated" justify a very different level, or at least destination of spending than saying "South Vietnam will need [international help] to build extensive anti-flood infrastructure". Potentially at least, I don't know the numbers.
Anti-flood infrastructure, and water supply infrastructure including desalination plus cleaning, and rework their farming practices completely, likely reduce no longer available seafood intake, and expand power grid to supply additional power to air conditioning... And more. Mind you, poor will be hit first and hardest.
It's the tip of the (soon no longer extant) iceberg. Flooding is the relatively easy part. Water, food and power are hard.
I don't think they argue against combating climate change.
Another way to put it: let's worry first about the climate change issues we cannot mitigate.