Can we reverse coral bleaching? We head north to Queensland to see if anything can be done to save the Great Barrier Reef.
A few weeks ago I dived the Great Barrier Reef, near Port Douglas. It was one of the saddest days of my life. I am haunted by what I've seen. And infuriated. I had come with hope, for some recovery at least from the largest coral bleaching event on record. But what I found was worse than I could have imagined. The Great Barrier Reef is losing its adjective.
Most of the reef's usually vibrant staghorn and plate corals are covered with an ugly green slime. Even some of the massive stony corals – the hardiest of all – are scarred with the tell-tale white of bleaching. The reef's diverse and stunning fish population are starving.
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| Tim Flannery visited the Great Barrier Reef a few weeks ago. Photo: Supplied |
A green turtle passes by. As the dead reef breaks down, its habitat will be eroded to rubble. And climate change is affecting the species in other ways. Rising seas have massively degraded its most important nesting site – Raine Island in the northern Great Barrier Reef. Those same rising waters caused, around 2011, the first mammal extinction brought about directly by climate change, when the entire habitat of the Bramble Key melomys (a native rodent unique to the Great Barrier Reef) was destroyed by saltwater intrusion.
As I reflected on my dive, I realised that I had been looking into the future. Because of el Nino, this year global temperatures rose by a third of a degree – to 1.2C above the pre-industrial average. By the 2030s, this year's conditions will be average.
This great organism, the size of Germany and arguably the most diverse place on earth, is dying before our eyes. Having watched my father dying two years ago, I know what the signs of slipping away are. This is death, which ever-rising temperatures will allow no recovery from. Unless we act now.
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| Three-quarters of the Barrier Reef is alive, says the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. |
But when I turn on the television, you wouldn't know that our greatest national treasure is on the brink of disappearing. It's the same old claptrap about jobs and the economy, never mind the fact that it's always the same, and it never improves no matter who is elected.
Never mind the fact that a healthy environment underpins a thriving economy.
The Australian government successfully censored the reef from inclusion in an international scientific report on the impacts of climate change on World Heritage sites.
As if preventing Australians from knowing about what we've done is the same as actually doing something about it.
All other election issues will come and go but in this election is our last chance. The fate of the Great Barrier Reef is hanging in the balance.
The decisions made in the next four years will determine whether or not the reef lives or dies.
If global emissions aren't trending down by 2020, it will all but ensure the reef will disappear.
That's why this should be the reef election.
The election that puts us on the path to rapidly closing our old and polluting coal-fired power stations and helping the rest of the world do the same. It's a great opportunity for Australia to display real global political leadership, on an issue of supreme national importance.
Yet neither of the major parties have a coal closure plan. Environment Minister Greg Hunt has again approved the Carmichael coal mine, which would cancel out Australia's entire annual emissions reduction if it goes ahead. Both sides of politics fail to acknowledge the speed with which we must transition our energy systems if we are to ensure the long-term survival of the reef.
It is not too late to save the reef. But it will take courage and leadership to make the kinds of decisions necessary to do it.
The alternative will mean we'll be explaining to our grandchildren that we had the chance to save this natural wonder – but we were too selfish to take it.
*Tim Flannery is a former Australian of the Year, scientist and environmentalist and chief councillor at the Climate Council.
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