A sea turtle swims on a reef at Moore Reef in Gunggandji Sea National off the coast of Queensland in eastern Australia on November 13, 2022.
Sam McNeil/AP
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Sam McNeil/AP
A sea turtle swims on a reef at Moore Reef in Gunggandji Sea National off the coast of Queensland in eastern Australia on November 13, 2022.
Sam McNeil/AP
CANBERRA, Australia – Australia’s environment minister said on Tuesday her government would lobby against UNESCO’s addition of the Great Barrier Reef to its list of endangered World Heritage Sites, arguing that words Criticism of government inaction on climate change is outdated.
Officials from the United Nations cultural agency and the International Union for Conservation of Nature released a report on Monday warning that without climate action “ambitious, rapid and sustainable” , the world’s largest coral reef will be in danger.
The report recommends moving the Great Barrier Reef to endangered status, after a 10-day mission in March to the famous reef system off Australia’s northeast coast has been added to the list. World Heritage Site in 1981.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the report reflected Australia’s previous conservative government, which was ousted in the May election after nine years in power.
She said the new center-left Labor government had addressed some of the report’s concerns, including action on climate change.
“We will make the position very clear to UNESCO that there is no need to separate the Great Barrier Reef in this way” from the endangered list, Plibersek told reporters.
She added: “The reason that UNESCO in the past has indicated a place at risk is because it wants to see more government investment or stronger government action, and since the change of government, both Those two things happened.”
The new government has enacted legislation pledging Australia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The previous government only pledged to reduce it from 26% to 28% by the end of the decade.
Ms Plibersek said her government had also committed A$1.2 billion ($798 million) to care for the reef and had canceled the previous government’s plan to build two large dams in the state. Queensland, which can affect reef water quality.
“If the Great Barrier Reef is in danger, then every coral reef in the world is in danger,” Plibersek said. “If this World Heritage Site is in danger, then most of the World Heritage Sites in the world are also in danger from climate change.”
The report said the Australian federal government and the Queensland government should adopt more ambitious emissions reduction targets that are in line with international efforts to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.
The small Greens party, which wants Australia to cut emissions by 75% by the end of the decade, has called on the government to do more to combat climate change according to the report.
Jodie Rummer, a marine biologist at James Cook University in Townville who has studied the reef for more than a decade, supported calls for Australia to work towards a 75 per cent reduction in emissions.
“We are taking action, but that action needs to be faster and much more urgent,” Rummer told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“We can’t claim to be doing all we can for the reef at this point. We’re not. We need to send that message to the rest of the world that we’re doing it. everything is possible for the reef and that means we need to take urgent action on emissions immediately,” she added.
Responses from Australian officials, both at the federal and state levels, will be considered before Paris-based UNESCO makes any formal proposals to the World Heritage committee.
In July last year, the previous Australian government attracted enough international support to delay UNESCO’s attempt to downgrade the reef’s status to “dangerous” due to damage from climate change. cause.
The Great Barrier Reef makes up about 10% of the world’s coral reef ecosystems. The network of more than 2,500 reefs covers 348,000 square kilometers (134,000 square miles).
Australian government scientists reported in May that more than 90% of Great Barrier Reef corals surveyed in the most recent year had bleached, the fourth major such event in seven years.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority said in its annual report that the bleaching was caused by global warming, but it was the reef’s first bleaching event in the La Niña weather pattern. , which is associated with cooler Pacific temperatures.
Bleaching in 2016, 2017 and 2020 damaged two-thirds of the coral.
Corals are bleached in response to heat stress, and scientists expect most corals to recover from the latest event.
