Conservationists say an official Australian government report to the United Nations’ World Heritage committee to be released next week must show Australia has fresh plans to attack the Great Barrier Reef’s two key threats, climate change and water quality.
At a forum earlier this month environment ministers signed-off on the “state of conservation” report for the reef,,which was then sent to UNESCO’s World Heritage committee.
Guardian Australia reports a report to be published today by the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia (WWF) and the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) details what they say Australia needs to do to avoid the committee placing the reef on its “in danger” list when it meets in China next year.
The report says Australia must revise its central Great Barrier Reef policy, the Reef 2050 plan, to fill a “gaping hole” left by the absence of efforts to keep global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Australia needs an “energy transition plan”, the report argues, that is compatible with the UN sponsored Paris Agreement’s ambitious climate target.
Richard Leck, WWF-Australia’s head of oceans, told Guardian Australia the government was now clearly acknowledging climate change as the reef’s greatest threat, and that temperatures needed to be kept to 1.5°C.
He said: “With all of that in front of us, the committee may be very concerned that Australia is acknowledging the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C but, at this stage, is not walking the walk.”
Mass coral bleaching along the reef in 2016 and again in 2017 killed half the shallow water corals, with northern sections hit hard.
The following year, the number of new corals crashed by 89 per cent.
In July 2019, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority published a revised climate change position statement, when it stressed the need to stick to a 1.5°C global warming target.
The Authority added: “If we are to secure a future for the Great Barrier Reef and coral reef ecosystems globally, there is an urgent and critical need to accelerate actions to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Guardian Australia reports in August, the authority’s five-yearly outlook report downgraded the long-term prospects for the reef from “poor” to “very poor”.
Also, that month, an official review of water quality along inshore reefs found conditions had failed to improve.
In 2017 the World Heritage committee asked for Australia to submit a detailed report on the state of the reef before December 1, which should include progress on water-quality targets.
Earlier this month, environment ministers sent that report, which UNESCO is expected to make public in the coming days.
At the time, the Queensland environment minister, Leeanne Enoch, said her government’s newly-enacted farm pollution laws “along with other efforts including tree clearing laws and action on climate change” would “prevent it from being listed by the World Heritage committee as in-danger next year.”
The committee will review the reef again at its annual meeting, to be held in China in June next year.
The world heritage committee resisted pressure to put the reef on its “in danger” list in 2015 after the Queensland’s Labor state government and the conservative Liberal-National federal government tabled the Reef 2050 plan, which set targets to improve water quality along the 2300-kilometre reef.
Guardian Australia reports the last time the Great Barrier Reef was reviewed by UNESCO, the World Heritage committee said it “strongly encourages” Australia to “accelerate efforts” to meet the Reef 2050 plan’s targets “in particular regarding water quality”.
The report from WWF-Australia and AMCS also said extra funding should be given to enforcing water quality laws.
A reforestation program should be introduced along riverbanks and other landscapes to reduce run-off into waterways that flow into the reef.
Mr Leck said the Reef 2050 plan was an “excellent” response, but added: “It had one major flaw. It did not include climate change.
“Given what’s happened to the reef in the subsequent years, that is now a gaping hole.
“The next 2050 plan has to incorporate what the federal and Queensland government has recognised. A reef-safe strategy has to be 1.5°C compatible.
Imogen Zethoven, AMCS director of strategy, said that to avoid a possible “in danger” listing, the Australian government needed to rapidly reduce emissions, transition to renewable energy and accelerate efforts to address local threats.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that even at 1.5°C of warming, coral reefs around the world would decline by 70 to 90 per cent.
At 2.0°C, coral reefs would all but disappear.
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