Election 2016: Labor Pledges $500 Million Fund To Protect Great Barrier Reef

ABC News - Naomi Woodley

Both parties have promised to increase efforts to curb crown-of-thorns starfish. (Supplied: JCU Professor Mark McCormick)

Key points: Labor to spend $100m on research, $300m on environmental programs, $100m on reef management Government promised additional $171m over six years for reef in budget, Labor reprioritised five years Greens pledged seven-point plan reef plan, including $1b to help coal workers exit industry

The Federal Opposition has said if elected, it would create a $500 million fund to help protect the Great Barrier Reef, through better research, co-ordination and environmental programs.
"The reef is in peril," Labor leader Bill Shorten said during a visit to Cairns, as surveys revealed 35 per cent of coral in central and northern parts of the reef is dead.
"We see our reef under pressure from climate change, from acidification, from crown-of-thorns starfish, we see it under pressure from poor water quality.
"This reef needs our protection and it needs it now."
Labor would spend $100 million on research by the CSIRO, universities and other institutes, $300 million on environmental programs to reduce nitrogen and sediment run-off and up to $100 million on better management of the reef.
"Stakeholder after stakeholder, the Queensland Auditor General, and most recently the Water Science Taskforce have called for much greater coordination of the different bodies that have an impact, and the different programs that are seeking to restore the health of the Great Barrier Reef," shadow environment minister Mark Butler said.
But Environment Minister Greg Hunt has questioned whether that funding is worthwhile.
"How they can justify $100 million on more bureaucracy without even outlining or explaining where that will be spent is an extraordinary diversion of funds for the reef," Mr Hunt told ABC's The World Today.

Parties promise to curb crown-of-thons starfish outbreaks
Both parties are promising to increase efforts to curb outbreaks of the destructive crown-of-thorns starfish.
Labor would fund an additional two control vessels, while the Government is promising to spend $6 million from its $210 million Reef Trust on one additional vessel.
"I think you'll find that we'll have considerably more to say on the reef," Mr Hunt said.
In the federal budget, the Government promised an additional $171 million over six years for the Great Barrier Reef through its Reef 2050 Plan and the Reef Trust.
Labor would reprioritise five years' worth of that funding, which is $123 million, to help make up its total $500 million fund.

Labor's reef funding needs explanation, Hunt says
Mr Hunt said the Opposition must explain what it intends to do with the budget allocation.
"Which programs will they be cutting? I think it's extremely important that they are upfront," he told The World Today.]
But Labor said it was committed to the long-term strategy developed in response to recommendations from the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, and to targets to reduce nitrogen run-off by 80 per cent and sediment run-off by 50 per cent by 2025.
"We are committed to the Reef 2050 Plan," Mr Butler said.
"What we're really talking about now is how we get to those targets, how we achieve the sort of reduction or improvement in water quality that one of the seven natural wonders of the world requires for its long-term health."
The Federal Government said since it was elected in 2013, it had provided a total of $460 million in funding for the reef through a variety of programs.
"These are reductions of sediment and nitrogen and pesticides from on farm activities, so to reduce the impact on our waterways, to improve water quality," Mr Hunt said.
"Real work, recognised by the World Heritage Committee, as Australia being the global role model — whereas only a couple of years ago they were looking at declaring under Labor and the Greens, the reef in danger," Mr Hunt said.
"What we have just done, through the Emissions Reduction Fund, is allocate $150 million to reef catchments, and a further $50 million to catchments further down the Queensland coast.
"This has a direct, immediate, profound impact on water quality."
The World Heritage Committee decided against listing the Great Barrier Reef as "in danger" last year, but said it would be monitoring the situation over the next four years.
Last month, the Greens released a seven-point plan to "revitalise" the Great Barrier Reef, including a $1 billion fund to help coal workers exit the industry.
"The scientists are saying that global warming is the biggest threat to the reef and that 93 per cent of the reef has just experienced bleaching," Greens Senator Larissa Waters said.
"What more is it going to take before the Labor and Liberal parties realise that we can not take any new coal or we will lose the Great Barrier Reef?"

Links

• 35pc of coral killed by bleaching in parts of Great Barrier Reef
• Coral bleaching and that UNESCO list. What's been going on with the reef?
• Recent news on the Great Barrier Reef 

'Huge Wake Up Call': Third Of Central, Northern Great Barrier Reef Corals Dead

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

More than one-third of the coral reefs of the central and northern regions of the Great Barrier Reef have died in the huge bleaching event earlier this year, Queensland researchers said.
Corals to the north of Cairns – covering about two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef – were found to have an average mortality rate of 35 per cent, rising to more than half in areas around Cooktown.

Researchers inspected 84 reefs and found coral mortality rates of 50 per cent or more in the north of the Great Barrier Reef. Photo: James Cook University

The study, of 84 reefs along the reef, found corals south of Cairns had escaped the worst of the bleaching and were now largely recovering any colour that had been lost.

Professor Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said he was "gobsmacked" by the scale of the coral bleaching which far exceeded the two previous events in 1998 and 2002.

Dying corals in the Great Barrier Reef after the worst bleaching event on record. Photo: James Cook University

"It is fair to say we were all caught by surprise," Professor Hughes said. "It's a huge wake up call because we all thought that coral bleaching was something that happened in the Pacific or the Caribbean which are closer to the epicentre of El Nino events."
The El Nino of 2015-16 was among the three strongest on record but the starting point was about 0.5 degrees warmer than the previous monster of 1997-98 as rising greenhouse gas emissions lifted background temperatures. Reefs in many regions, such as Fiji and the Maldives, have also been hit hard.
Bleaching occurs when abnormal conditions, such as warm seas, cause corals to expel tiny photosynthetic algae, called zooxanthellae. Corals turn white without these algae and may die if the zooxanthellae do not recolonise them.
The northern end of the Great Barrier Reef was home to many 50- to 100-year-old corals that had died and may struggle to rebuild before future El Ninos push tolerance beyond thresholds.
"How likely is it that they will fully recover before we get a fourth or a fifth bleaching event?" Professor Hughes said.
(Use the slider image below to see how mature staghorn corals at one reef at Orpheus Island on the Great Barrier Reef looked at low tide in 1996 prior to the 1998 bleaching event, and 20 years later.)

The health of the reef has been a contentious political issue, with Environment Minister Greg Hunt pledging more funds in the May budget to improve water quality – one aspect affecting coral health.
But Mr Hunt has also had to explain why his department instructed the UN to cut out a section on Australia from a report that dealt with the threat of climate change to World Heritage sites including the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu.

'10 cyclones holding hands'
Professor Hughes said tropical cyclones can cut a 50km-wide swatch of destruction of corals, but this year's bleaching event was like "10 cyclones holding hands and marching across the northern third of the Great Barrier Reef".
But cyclones can also help. The category-five Cyclone Winston that slammed into Fiji in February, brought widespread rains over parts of Queensland as a tropical depression, helping to lower sea temperatures by two degrees and sparing much of the southern corals from severe bleaching, Professor Hughes said.
Even so, those southern reefs are still likely to have had their reproduction and growth rates slowed by the unusually warm seas. The scientists said the bleaching event showed how important it was to continue to bolster resilience of the reef, such as through programs to limit run-off from farms and towns bringing in excessive nutrients and pollution.
"The reef is no longer as resilient as it once was, and it's struggling to cope with three bleaching events in just 18 years," Professor John Pandolfi, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at The University of Queensland, said. "Many coastal reefs in particular are now severely degraded."
(Use the slider on image below to see mature staghorn coral at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. The corals bleached in February 2016 and were overgrown with algae by April.)
Professor Hughes said he did not advocate the reef being put on the "in danger" list by the World Heritage Committee, but it was time governments reconsidered their approval for massive new coal mines in Queensland's Galilee Basin and elsewhere.
"The key threat to the Great Barrier Reef is climate change – the government has recognised that many times," he said.
"[But] there is a disconnect in the policy round governments issuing permits for 60 years for new coal mines and how that might impact on the Great Barrier Reef and reefs more generally."

Links

• UN reef report censored by Australia
• UN report: Australia's behaviour 'disgusting'
• Labor pledges $380m to boost reef
• CSIRO dismantles 'integrated' climate science group as pressure mounts on Larry Marshall Australia cut from UN report on climate threat to avoid damaging reef tourism

Greg Hunt Plays The Long Game On His Glaringly Obvious Emissions Trading Scheme

The Guardian - Lenore Taylor

Minister keeps up attack on Labor's 'carbon tax' to placate Coalition climate change sceptics, all the while ensuring the machinery is in place for his own ETS

The Coalition is deferring until after the election its internal reckoning over climate policy. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

For years Greg Hunt has been suggesting different things to different people about his climate policy. This week he was almost caught out.
Most people who understand how it works – environmentalists, business leaders, analysts – know the Coalition's Direct Action policy cannot meet Australia's promised long-term greenhouse gas reductions exactly as it stands. For years Hunt has reassured them – don't worry, the framework is there.
The so-called safeguards mechanism within the policy (which sets emissions "baselines", or limits, for big polluters) can be tightened so it becomes a type of emissions trading scheme. The baselines can be gradually reduced and then companies that can't meet them forced to buy pollution permits. But Hunt is keeping quiet about that, playing a long game, waiting for the cabinet, and his party, to catch up with the scientific and economic realities of climate change, biding his time until a scheduled "review" next year.

This has declined into a squabble over semantics

John Connor, the Climate Institute

To his party the minister has been reassuring in a different way, keeping up the attack on Labor's "carbon tax", insisting that any kind of emissions trading is dead and buried forever.
The fact that there is a potential trading scheme embedded inside his own legislation has been glaringly obvious for years. I wrote about it in 2014, and, after Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister last year, a couple of times.
I wrote about it again in May after Hunt released modelling saying his existing policy could meet his long-term targets, even though the author of the modelling told me it would almost certainly require either large funding top-ups to the emissions reduction fund (estimated by others to be at least $6bn) or – you guessed it – a strengthening of the safeguards mechanism so it turns into a baseline emissions trading scheme, and again after last week's National Press Club debate after I (unsuccessfully) sought an answer from Hunt on whether the safeguards policy needed to be strengthened to achieve the government's 2030 target.
In fact, in Paris last December the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, spoke openly about the "role a carbon market might play [in Australia] after 2020", and Lewis Tyndall, co-founder of GreenCollar – a firm that has been a big winner from Hunt's Direct Action auctions, told an event: "Greg Hunt has described the safeguards mechanism as a baseline and credit system."
And then last Monday, the Australian editor-at-large Alan Kohler wrote a column on the same subject, pointing out that the safeguards mechanism could quite quickly become a type of ETS and asserting that: "What hasn't been announced or included in the Coalition's legislation yet is that the caps will start to be reduced from next year."
Without making any assumptions or assertions about another journalist's sources, some of the column sounded familiar to those close to the minister and his advisers, and it certainly claimed to contain "inside" information.
Kohler pointed out that a type of emissions trading scheme had "been part of the Coalition's climate policy since well before Greg Hunt went from shadow minister to minister for the environment in 2013. He made it a condition of his appointment by Tony Abbott that the science of climate change would be accepted and the emissions reduction target would not change."
And he went further, asserting that "when Malcolm Turnbull became leader and prime minister last year, amazingly, he did not fully understand his party's climate policy, and in particular the inclusion of a cap and trade ETS, because Hunt had never discussed it in cabinet. Apparently, he was pleasantly surprised, but decided to maintain radio silence, as part of his broader efforts to keep the conservatives onside."
Unsurprisingly, the "conservatives" in both the Liberal and National parties were extremely displeased by these claims, or the fact that the allegedly "secret" ETS embedded in their policy started getting wider airplay – in a question on the ABC's Q&A, for example, and in stories in the Australian Financial Review.
Hunt wrote a carefully parsed letter to the Australian and distributed a chart rebutting some of the claims made. It was a case study in obfuscation.
He insisted the safeguards mechanism "is not a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme" (at the moment – with the baselines set at "historic highs" and with companies able to ask for them to be set even higher if needs be, this is true, because it will be almost impossible for any company to exceed its baseline or be forced to buy pollution permits, which of course also means the policy achieves almost nothing).
Hunt said the fact that the government has "budgeted to raise not a single dollar of revenue" proved it was not planning a carbon tax. And that is also true, but it does not prove the government is not planning a baseline and credit scheme, because under such a scheme businesses buy credits from other businesses or companies that create credits under the emissions reduction fund. The "trade" does not involve the government.
And he said that it was "incorrect" to say each firm's baselines would decline from 2017, when he is planning to review the policy. Which is also true. That's the whole point of this conversation.
For his policy to work, Hunt, as minister, has to decide to reduce them, and turn his policy into the trading scheme everyone has always believed he intended. If he doesn't do this as part of a range of measures, no modelling or analysis has found he can meet his long-term targets. So is he planning an ETS, or isn't he? Will his policy work, or won't it?
Some observers who have been going along with Hunt's two-tracked messaging for years seem to be losing patience.
"This has declined into a squabble over semantics," said John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute.
"The safeguard mechanism framework starting on 1 July clearly says companies that exceed their baselines can buy offsets from another company. That is a trade in emissions."
Connor said what mattered was not ruling out scaleable policies to meet either the government's "inadequate" 2030 target, or the tougher 2030 targets Australia needed.
"As we have said many times before, that definitely requires much tighter baselines – a much stronger safeguards mechanism, or, alternatively, at least another $6bn to buy the emissions reductions through the emissions reduction fund."
Many other experts make a similar point.
Tony Wood, energy program director at the Grattan Institute, has studied Hunt's rebuttals closely.
"He has the machinery in place. He's just not pre-empting what a re-elected Coalition government would do with it. He has very carefully not ruled out reducing the baselines, and in my view it would be very difficult for the Coalition to meet its target if he does not end up doing that," Wood says.
This week the debate finally focused on the great unanswered question of the Coalition's policy. The question that determines whether or not it can deliver even Australia's modest commitments to reducing greenhouse gases and combating global warming. But despite all the attention, and all his carefully worded responses, Hunt has still not answered and nor has Turnbull.
Hunt has given the conservatives in his party the impression that he ruled out reducing the baselines and setting up his own ETS, and there are many in both the Liberal and National parties who insist any type of ETS will happen over their political corpses.
But Hunt is pointing out to others that his carefully chosen words actually left the question open.
The Coalition is deferring until after the election its internal reckoning between entrenched climate change sceptics and those pushing for something like a workable climate policy, the final answer as to whether Turnbull will indeed continue to lead a party not committed to acting on climate change.
But in an election campaign during which the Cape Grim air quality monitoring station registered a count of 400 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere and 93% of the Great Barrier Reef is experiencing coral bleaching, the electorate has a right to know now.

Links

• Coalition climate plan 'assumes emissions trading', says government modeller
• Labor pledges $500m over five years to support Great Barrier Reef
• Most coral dead in central section of Great Barrier Reef, surveys reveal
• Australia covered up UN climate change fears for Tasmania forests and Kakadu
• Great Barrier Reef: who's profiting from the destruction and devastation?

Homeowners Kept In Dark About Climate Change Risk To Houses, Says Report

The Guardian - Melissa Davey

Climate Institute says risk data held by regulators, state and local governments, insurers and banks, but homebuyers and developers do not have access to it

Houses in some areas of Australia are likely to become uninsurable, dilapidated and uninhabitable due to climate change, says the Climate Institute. Photograph: Chris Hyde/Getty Images

Climate Institute Report Significant and increasing financial losses will continue to be incurred by owners and buyers of properties built in areas that are vulnerable to climate change unless the governments, regulators, insurers and, especially, the banks take greater responsibility, finds the Climate Institute's There goes the neighbourhood: Climate change, Australian housing and the financial sector report, released today. View Report (pdf)

The risk that houses in some areas of Australia are likely to become uninsurable, dilapidated and uninhabitable due to climate change is kept hidden from those building and buying property along Australia's coasts and in bushfire zones, a Climate Institute report says.
The report says there is untapped and unshared data held by regulators, state and local governments, insurers and banks on the level of risk, but that most homebuyers and developers are not told about the data and do not have access to it.

The full scale of risk may only be recognised through disaster or damage, or when insurance premiums become unaffordable
Climate Institute Report

"Even when public authorities, financial institutions and other stakeholders possess information about current and future risk levels, they are sometimes unwilling, and sometimes unable, to share it with all affected parties," the report released on Monday says."Thus, foreseeable risks are allowed to perpetuate, and even to grow via new housing builds. The full scale of the risk may only be recognised either through disaster or damage, or when insurance premiums become unaffordable. Any of these events can in turn affect housing values."
The economic costs are high and could ultimately represent a real risk to the financial sector itself, the report says. While insurers, regulators and governments have started to recognise this risk, banks who approve the mortgages for at-risk properties have not yet begun working towards a solution.
For example, the report says, banks could integrate the impact of climate into their risk assessment processes, work with other stakeholders in the public, private and civil society sectors to research and develop ways to minimise climate impact risk to housing, and address losses that will occur in an equitable way.
It also says that state, federal and local governments could do more to protect buyers, by including climate risk in planning, development and approval processes, mandating the disclosure of all available hazard mapping, and requiring that all dwellings be built or renovated as fit-for-purpose for the maximum projected impacts of climate change.
Extreme weather and climate change risks associated with a property should also be disclosed at the point of sale.
"Even if these 'uninsurable' and 'unadaptable' properties are only a tiny minority of the total housing stock, the eventual devaluation could be financially devastating to individuals," the report says.
"It could also be damaging to banks, other financial companies and public balance sheets at all levels of government."
An author of the report and the manager of investment and governance at the Climate Institute, Kate Mackenzie, said the sector had to be proactive before houses became damaged, otherwise there could be a costly and messy battle over who bore responsibility.
For example, she said, councils could be liable for not providing flood data and for permitting a vulnerable development to go ahead, the developer for building it, the home owners for not realising the risk, the building code authority, the banks for financing the development and the mortgages, or the insurers.
"There's definitely a big need for governments to show leadership on this," she said.
"There have been a few very good recommendations made in the past by public policy reviews which really haven't been followed up at the federal level or at the state level or through Coag, which would provide a mechanism for a national adaptation strategy."
These included the reports from an Australian Treasury taskforce, the natural disaster insurance review, and two Productivity Commission inquiries, she said.
Her report concludes: "A sense of exasperation is evident among those who have spent any length of time seeking to address the economic and policy challenges posed by extreme weather."
Some researchers are already taking the matter into their own hands and developing products to help buyers manage risk. Last month, the website Coastal Risk Australia was launched. It combines Google maps with detailed tide and elevation data, as well as future sea-level rise projections, to help people see whether their house or suburb is likely to be inundated.

Links

• Climate change: website reveals which homes will be swamped by rising sea levels
• Climate change: Australia's big banks urged to reject new loans for coal projects
• Saving Great Barrier Reef from climate change should be central election issue, says Tim Flannery
• Coalition climate plan 'assumes emissions trading', says government modeller
• Paris agreement is a strong signal that 'we will solve climate crisis', Al Gore says
• Great Barrier Reef bleaching made 175 times likelier by human-caused climate change, say scientists
• Unseasonably warm weather a clear sign of climate change, say scientists
• George Brandis says climate science not settled, but CSIRO should act as if it is

CSIRO Dismantles 'Integrated' Climate Science Group As Pressure Mounts On Larry Marshall

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

What the CSIRO cuts mean for Australia
CSIRO's plans to shed 275 staff will impact upon our understanding of how climate change is going to affect Australia, explains Fairfax's Peter Hannam.

CSIRO's deep cuts to its science programs have come under fresh criticism with the head of a global network of monitoring stations warning Australia will lose key researchers that will dent the country's ability to manage future climate change.
Almost all the staff at CSIRO's Yarralumla, ACT site researching how vegetation is responding to rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns – information that feeds into the world's main climate models – have been told their jobs are "surplus to needs", senior scientists say.
The latest revelations about the impacts of the jobs cuts first announced in February come as more questions are raised about the suitability of Larry Marshall to head the agency.

Under fire: Dr Larry Marshall, Chief Executive of CSIRO. Photo: James Brickwood

Fairfax Media reported on Friday Dr Marshall was chosen as CEO despite questions over his record as a scientist and Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
Greens science spokesman Adam Bandt called on CSIRO's board to reject the Turnbull government's endorsement of a three-year contract extension for Dr Marshall when it meets on June 23-24.
"The appointment of Larry Marshall was a failed experiment by Tony Abbott. It turns out you can't run a long-standing public institution like a Silicon Valley start-up," Mr Bandt said.

Changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures won't just affect ecosystems but also Australia's agriculture, experts say. Photo: Jessica Shapiro

"It is vital that other political parties signal their intentions before the CSIRO Board meets in June to potentially consider what happens with the expired contract, he said.
Kim Carr, Labor's shadow science spokesman, said the current mess at CSIRO in which world-leading staff and programs were axed was the result of "ill-considered and rash decisions".
"Given we are in an election period, Labor has called on the Liberals to halt the job cuts," Senator Carr said, adding that the ALP has committed to a review of CSIRO if it wins the July 2 election.
Fairfax Media sought comment from Science Minister Christopher Pyne.
At Yarralumla, as many as 13 of the 14 staff in Micrometeorology and complex system science will go, insiders say.
Research at risk includes those behind the Australian National Outlook report that assessed how the economy will be affected by global warming.
Dr Marshall hailed the work, going on ABC's 7.30 on the day the cuts were announced: "It was published in Nature. I think it's one of the first times detailed modelling of predicting the future for a country has actually been published as a scientific paper and it was really highly regarded because we use science to try and predict how to get a better future for Australia."
Also at risk is the Ozflux research team – part of the global Fluxnet group of about 500 stations. Scientists have been told their work is no longer needed and a only single technician may remain.
Dennis Baldocchi, the coordinator of Fluxnet based in Berkeley, California, said the closure of the research "would cause a significant hole".
"It's easy to collect numbers – you've got to make sure you can interpret them," Dr Baldocchi said. "The whole field owes a lot to Australia."
CSIRO runs one of the key "flux" stations in Australia, based at Tumbarumba in southern NSW. The tower constantly monitors how carbon-dioxide, water and energy move between the forests and the atmosphere. (See the 30 flux sites in Australia, New Zealand below.)
"We're not sexy like curing cancer, but we study the breathing of the biosphere," Dr Baldocchi said.
"Losing Tumbarumba would mean losing an important piece of the puzzle," one senior researcher said. "[It] is also one of the only two towers that have a long time series – greater than15 years."
"This is very valuable when we look at, for instance, variability and extremes, which are both changing under a changing climate and which we both don't understand well," the scientist said.
Australia's highly variable climate also means small changes in evaporation, plant die-back or drought can have big impacts on both eco-systems and agriculture.
CSIRO did not comment on the Yarralumla cuts other than to say talks were ongoing. "All of the talks and negotiations at present have the same goal of ensuring the excellent science and the long-term future of CSIRO is maintained," a spokesman said.

Links
What the CSIRO cuts mean for Australia
Australia cut from UN report on climate threat to avoid damaging reef tourism
Warming times: How Sydney and much of Australia is caught in a hot spell
The most polluted city in the world isn't Beijing or Dehli

Editorial: In A Word, Why Climate Change Matters: Water

Chicago Tribune - Editorial Board

Why should Chicagoans care if parts of the globe run out of water? Because water crises can lead to large-scale migration, and even conflict. (Antonio Perez, Chicago Tribune)

Think climate change and what comes to mind? The Arctic Ocean melting like an ice cube under a July sun? Island paradises swallowed up by rising seas? Beefier hurricanes crashing into coastlines with greater frequency?
There's a ring of truth to all of the above, and it should make all of us think and act greener. Now, the World Bank has come out with a report that sums up one of the gravest of climate change consequences with just one word: water. As in, not enough of it.
By 2050, the report projects, water scarcity could cause economic growth in some parts of the world to drop by as much as 6 percent. Regions where water is plentiful will get thirsty, and regions already struggling with scarcity will get thirstier. Water availability in cities could plummet by as much as two-thirds by 2050 compared to 2015 levels.

Mary-Therese Heintzkill, of Chicago, plays with her dog "Jett" at the Evanston Dog Beach on May 12, 2016. (Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)

The World Bank makes a good case for the linkage between global warming and water scarcity. Steady population growth in coming decades will produce a bigger demand for water. The world's population is expected to top 9 billion by 2050. That means food production will need to double, and ramping up agricultural output requires setting aside more water for farming. More people also means a need for more energy. Providing power is one of the biggest consumers of water. By 2035, the World Bank predicts, energy is expected to consume 85 percent more water than it does now.
At the same time, global warming will push up temperatures, creating more evaporation — meaning there will be less water at a time when farms and power producers need more of it. And with global warming come rising sea levels, which destroy coastal aquifers with salinity, further reducing available fresh water.

Lake Michigan has a mind of its own

It's not that global warming sops up water and never returns it. Rather, water is being redistributed in ways that make matters worse for water-scarce regions. Those regions, for the most part, include poorer, developing countries that lack the wherewithal to solve water scarcity. Parts of the world most at risk include the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Central America. Overall, a quarter of mankind lives in places burdened by water scarcity, the report states. In 20 years, that share could double.
It all sounds fairly grim. The World Bank, however, offers up some solutions. Too many cities and towns around the world make water free. The report advocates pricing that reflects water's value. We're likely to be better stewards of water if we price it as the precious commodity it is.
Desalination plants that turn seawater into drinking water have been godsends to countries such as Israel that for decades coped with water scarcity, but that approach has a flip side: Desalination devours energy and is therefore expensive. The report also touts recycling storm water and "gray water" — water from sinks, showers, tubs and washing machines.
Those remedies help, but they work around the edges of the core problem — climate change.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions should top the list of answers. The Paris agreement on climate change, signed by more than 170 nations in April, is a good start. That accord calls for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that would limit the planet's warming to an increase of no more than 3.6 degrees above pre-Industrial Revolution levels.
Countries still need to hammer out action plans to meet that goal, however, and then act on those plans. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and many world leaders believe the right incentive to coax emissions reductions is to impose "carbon pricing," requiring fossil fuel polluters to pay for carbon dioxide they send into the air. President Barack Obama backs the concept, but he's leaving office in January.
Chicago is perched on one of the world's most plentiful fresh drinking water sources — one of the Great Lakes. So, why should Chicagoans care if parts of the globe run out of water? Well, water crises can lead to large-scale migration, and even conflict. The report is careful to not suggest that water scarcity will start wars between nations, but it does stress that water scarcity has in the past sparked violence and civil conflict within countries. "In a globalized and connected world, such problems are impossible to quarantine," the World Bank says.
The report ought to be a wake-up call to a world that has treated water as if its quantity is boundless. It's not. It's finite and increasingly scarce, and we need to start learning how to manage it better. One of the best ways to do that is to confront climate change head-on.

Links

• UN agency: Pace of environmental damage 'intensifying' across the globe
• After the Pacific Ocean swallows villages and five Solomon Islands, a study blames climate change
• Donald Trump calls global warming a 'hoax,' until his golf course is threatened

Climate Change Threatens Iconic Sites Worldwide, But One Country Is Trying To Hide

Mashable Australia - Olivia Niland  |  Johnny Simon

Venice, Italy and its surrounding lagoon is extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels. Image: Getty Images

Venice, Stonehenge and the Statue of Liberty are among more than two dozen World Heritage sites—which are often popular destinations for summer tourists— threatened by climate change, according to a UNESCO report released Friday.
But no sites in Australia are mentioned in the report, even though the country's Great Barrier Reef, a World Heritage site, has been suffering from a massive coral bleaching event caused by unusually mild ocean temperatures. The rising temperatures have been linked to human-caused global warming.
Australia is absent from the report, according to multiple news sites, because the country's ambassador to UNESCO had its section scrubbed over worries the revelation may curb tourism.
Australia's absence has angered scientists connected to the report as well as local politicians, who say trying to hide the state of the Great Barrier Reef from one report won't stop people from learning about the problem.
"It won't work because Australians realize that the Great Barrier Reef is under terrible threat," Larissa Waters, a Greens senator from Queensland told the ABC.

Great Barrier Reef © OUR PLACE

The report was written before the latest global coral bleaching event, said Adam Markham, the deputy director of climate and energy with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
Markham said the original draft did mention climate change as a major risk for the reef as well as the site's history.
The UCS, UNESCO and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) co-authored the report, "World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate," which describes 31 other natural and cultural sites located in 29 countries as being at risk due to climate change. The sites include Yellowstone National Park, Mt. Everest and the Galapagos Islands.
Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil are causing the greatest environmental threat facing these World Heritage sites, the organizations conclude.
The effects of global warming, such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels and worsening droughts could devastate local economies heavily reliant upon the tourism industry, the report finds. Though beneficial to local economies, the researchers note that "the tourism sector itself is vulnerable to climate change," and carbon emissions from tourism are expected to more than double within the next 25 years.
The report calls for action to be taken to protect the sites, which have "universal value to humankind." In order to do this, the report concludes, world leaders must work to implement new environmental policies, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet the Paris Agreement aimed at preventing global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels, and educate tourists about climate threats facing vulnerable World Heritage sites.
"Globally, we need to better understand, monitor and address climate change threats to World Heritage sites," Mechtild Rössler, director of UNESCO's World Heritage Center, said in a statement to Mashable.
"As the report's findings underscore, achieving the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global temperature rise to a level well below 2 degrees Celsius is vitally important to protecting our World Heritage for current and future generations."
The report notes that historic buildings, monuments and fragile coral reefs are particularly vulnerable to climate change and environmental stressors. Beyond the Great Barrier Reef, more than half of the world's coral reefs are at risk of degradation, while rising Adriatic sea levels have already damaged hundreds of buildings in Venice.
In some cases, relocating buildings and monuments may be an option, but in most situations it is not.
"Cultural resources lose part of their significance and meaning when moved," the report notes. "And, once lost, they are gone forever."

Hoi An, Vietnam
The old town of Hoi An, Vietnam, which dates back to the 15th century and sits only 2 meters above sea level, will be dealing with increasingly severe floods and storm surges from typhoons in the future.  Image: Pawel Toczynski/Getty

Cordillera Mountains, Philippines
 The picturesque rice terraces of the Philippine Cordillera Central Mountains are extremely sensitive to climate change, after being cultivated in a very stable climate for centuries. Image: Jacob Maentz

Yellowstone National Park
Shorter winters, less snowmelt and drier summers are putting Yellowstone National Park at risk of more severe wildfires. The park is home to moose, wolves and bears, and is among the most visited in the United States, drawing 4 million visitors in 2015.  Image: AFP/Getty Images

Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal
The high peaks of Nepal's Sagarmatha National Park, which includes Mount Everest, are particularly vulnerable to severe glacial melt. Shrinking glaciers in this area have caused landslides, floods and put local endangered species at risk. Image: POJCHEEWIN YAPRASERT/Moment RF/Getty

Wadden Sea, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands
The Wadden Sea is the largest unbroken body of intertidal saltflats and mudflats in the world, and belongs to Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. The area is home to a diverse wildlife population, including seals and millions of birds, but its beaches are threatened by erosion due to rising sea levels.  Image: Photothek via Getty Images

Galapagos Islands
The Galapagos Islands, home to hundreds of endemic species, is especially sensitive to the effects of climate change as increased rainfall has led to overgrowth of some plants. This endangers the wellbeing of other species. Seven of the islands most well-known species, including giant tortoises, penguins and sea lions, are at risk of declining as the planet warms. Image: Paul Souders/Digital Vision/Getty

Lunenberg, Nova Scotia
Each year, more than 1.8 million tourists visit Old Town Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, Canada, where rising sea levels are causing increased damage and flooding during powerful storms. Climate change could threaten Lunenberg's main industries: fishing, shipping, and tourism, which generates $115 million in revenue each year.  Image: Wolfgang Kaehler/Lightrocket/Getty

Statue of Liberty
Rising sea levels and storm surges like those seen during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 threaten one of New York's most distinctive icons, the Statue of Liberty. The hurricane's destruction caused the Statue of Liberty to be closed for repairs for nine months, and resulted in approximately $100 million in damage.  Image: Alex Trautwig/Getty 

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado
Home to centuries-old Native American archeological sites, Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado is threatened by the longer and drier weather associated with climate change, leading to costly wildfires and a lack of vegetation needed to stabilize soil and prevent destructive erosion. Image: MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/GEtty

Stonehenge
Even Stonehenge, which has stood in the United Kingdom for millennia, is threatened by climate change. Increased rainfall has placed the plain it sits on at risk of flooding and soil erosion. Image: NIKLAS HALLEN/AFP/Getty

The Holy Valley and Forest of the Cedars of God, Lebanon
The emblematic cedar forests found in the mountains of Lebanon, now reduced to just 5% of their original size, are at risk of disappearing following massive deforestation and the ongoing effects of climate change. Image: AFP/Getty

Wadi Rum, Jordan
Jordan's Wadi Rum is a desert rock formation home to caverns, arches, and animals including falcons, Arabian oryx and Nubian ibex. Its plants also provide food and medicine to local Bedouin people, but the area is currently under threat from tourism and climate change resulting in warmer temperatures and drought.  Image: Adam Pretty/Getty

Komodo National Park, Indonesia
Climate change and its likely symptoms (increased rains, ocean acidification) is threatening the home of the Komodo Dragons, which are endemic to Komodo National Park in Indonesia and whose breeding patterns may be affected by climate change. The islands of the national park are also home to mangroves and coral reefs, which are especially vulnerable to ocean acidification and rising temperatures. Image: Barcroft Media/Getty

Kilwa Kisani, Tanzania
The ancient ruins of Kilwa Kisani in Tanzania are vulnerable to increased storm surges related to rising sea levels. The once-great city is home to the Great Mosque and palace of Husuni Kubwa, built largely of coral and limestone mortar, and is at risk of damage from flooding, erosion and coastal storms.  Image: Nigel Pavitt/AWL Images RM/Getty

Easter Island
Rapa Nui National Park, better known as Easter Island, in Chile is at risk from rising sea levels and erosion, while higher waves could eventually topple the island's iconic stone heads. Though remote, the island receives 60,000 visitors each year, and four of the island's sites most reliant upon tourism are also classified as the most threatened by wave damage.  Image: Marko Stavric/Flickr RF/Getty

Huascarán National Park, Peru
Shrinking glaciers in Peru's Huascarán National Park have put the local water system, which a growing population depends on, at risk. The Huascarán is the country's highest peak, and the park is also home to 135 species of birds and diverse plant life. A popular tourist destination, the park is threatened by melting glaciers and rising temperatures which could eventually cause avalanches and flooding.  Image: Stockphoto24/Getty

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, Uganda
The mountain gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park are becoming increasingly susceptible to disease as stresses associated with climate change and an increase in tourism have been linked to the transmission of diseases from humans to gorillas. Image: ullstein bild/Getty