The reef is rapidly deteriorating

A new report reveals that under the Federal Government’s watch the long-term outlook for the Great Barrier Reef has gone from “poor” to “very poor” for the very first time.

“This report makes it abundantly clear that climate change is the major factor driving the deterioration of one of our most precious natural icons,” said the Climate Council’s CEO Amanda McKenzie.

The Government’s caretaker of the reef – the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority – releases a report every five years that provides an assessment of the reef’s health, the pressures it’s under and its likely future. 

The report states: “Climate change is escalating and is the most significant threat to the Region’s long-term outlook…The challenge to restore Reef resilience is big, but not insurmountable. However, it requires mitigation of climate change.”

Read the story from The Climate Council - “The reef is rapidly deteriorating.”

How Australia's attempted carbon trickery is stoking India to pollute

In the closing backroom negotiations at the United Nations climate conference in Madrid this week, the full impact of Australia’s proposal to use accounting tricks to nullify its commitments to cut carbon emissions became abundantly clear. In response, India for the first time proposed using credits from old "clean development" projects under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol as a way to water down the targets it committed to under the Paris Agreement in 2015.

Bush fire smoke in Sydney this week.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison told us yet again on Thursday that Australia only accounts for 1.3 per cent of global emissions, so what we do at home makes little or no difference to the environmental outcome. But the tough-talking in Madrid turns that logic on its head. India is the world's fourth-largest emitter. And Australia’s dodgy accounting proposals are stoking India – and other big emitters – to pollute more.

Read the story from The Sydney Morning Herald by Dean Bialek - “How Australia's attempted carbon trickery is stoking India to pollute.”