I think that one has not much to do with Global Warming, but everything to do with how not-so-smart planning decisions in the past, eventually played out. Unfortunately humans think short term and beaches are generally not static - so it's a bad combination when so many people want to live on the coast, like RIGHT. ON. THE. COAST.
Beach fronts move seasonally and in the longer term (decades/centuries, etc) with the sand budget being affected by many things - bathymetry, wind, wave energy, longshore drift, storm action etc. That's why you shouldn't put infrastructure too close to mobile sand dunes or the continual movement may bite you - hard.
There are examples everywhere of us dumb, hairless monkeys building things without understanding coastal processes;
- The infrastructure in the article mentioned
- On top of the white cliffs of Dover
- Tweed Heads harbour extentions in the 1960's/70's stopped the sand moving North. Very soon after the beaches started eroding and disappearing in Qld,
- nearly all of the beach has disappeared over the last 50 years in front of the holiday camps along the Busselton strip,
- New Orleans got rid of most of the mangroves and natural coastal vegetation, dredged and straightened the rivers and tributaries, removing the natural buffers against storm surges. Then Hurricane Katrina hit. Oops...
Oh, we do like to live beside the seaside. I just wish we did it smarter. A lot smarter!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcHyyuGjuk0