A coastal council in Victoria's south-east is calling for the federal government to make big polluters pay for climate-related damages. The Bass Coast Shire Council will write to Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen asking for the government to impose a levy on fossil fuel companies, with the funds raised to help communities recover from extreme weather events.A Climate Council report released this year found annual disaster costs per Australian had increased by 200 per cent since the 1980s.State and federal governments have poured $9 million into protecting coastal towns in Bass Coast.Councillor Mat Morgan, a Greens candidate at the upcoming Victorian election, put the motion to council at a meeting last month.Councillors voted to approve the motion, five votes to four."We give away the majority of our gas for free, and we're exporting it overseas," Cr Morgan said.Victoria's Bass Coast has been affected by worsening storms and coastal erosion for more than a decade.In the tourist town of Inverloch, more than 70 metres of foreshore at the surf beach has been lost to erosion since 2012.Inverloch's surf lifesaving club was built in 2010 and, due to erosion, is now protected from incoming tides by sandbags.Measures such as wet sand walls have helped to protect the town's shoreline, and a dredger is now used to move sand from a nearby inlet to the surf beach."We've got kilometres and kilometres of coast So much of our housing [is] built on coastal communities that we are walking into an absolutely existential crisis for some of these regional towns and councils," Cr Morgan said.In the town of Silverleaves on Phillip Island, also part of the Bass Coast Shire, the western shoreline has receded 77m due to erosion