The World Heritage Committee’s July 23 decision not to place the Great Barrier Reef on a list of “endangered” world heritage sites was a win for the fossil fuel industry.
A United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( report to the World Heritage Committee had recommended the reef be put on the because the ecosystem had “deteriorated from poor to very poor.”
The report emphasised that the 1.5° Celsius target, as outlined in the Paris Agreement on climate change, is the “critical threshold for the property”. It said mass coral bleaching events in 2016, 2017 and 2020 had further degraded the reef, and rising global average temperatures will cause more bleaching and degradation.
UNESCO said other major threats to the reef include pollutants from land-based run-off from agriculture, as well as from coastal development and overuse.
The report stressed the urgency of the crisis and called on parties to the agreement to “fulfil their responsibility to protect the Great Barrier Reef.”
Despite these warnings, the federal government launched a lobbying campaign to block the “in danger” listing. Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley flew overseas to lobby ambassadors in Budapest, Madrid, Sarajevo, Paris, Oman and the Maldives.
A Great Barrier Reef snorkelling trip was organised for ambassadors representing countries with voting rights on the World Heritage Committee. the federal government’s special envoy for the Great Barrier Reef, said the purpose of the trip was to provide “first hand information”.
The .
’s push for the heritage committee to delay any decision on the “in danger” listing until at least 2023. Other countries that voted against the “in danger” listing included Saint Kitts and Nevis, Ethiopia, Hungary, Mali, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia and Spain.
However, this does not let the government off the hook.
The vote only deferred a formal decision on the reef’s status until 2022, when the World Heritage Committee meets again. UNESCO will also conduct an audit of the health of reef within the next six months.
Why is the government so worried about the “in danger” listing? And why has it failed to listen to scientific institutions, such as the , which states that climate change is the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef?
If the Great Barrier Reef is listed as being in danger, the pressure from the international community on Australia to significantly reduce its fossil fuel emissions would be much greater.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has will destroy 70–90% of reefs globally. For the Great Barrier Reef to be saved, all new coal and gas mines need to be halted.
Meanwhile, the Climate Council, the Australian Marine Conservation Society and Extinction Rebellion will ratchet up their campaigns to save the reef in the lead-up to the conference on climate change beginning on November 12.