Adani threatens to take his bat and ball and go home - half the Australian east coast rushes to open the door

Essential Research poll, commissioned by environmental activists 350.org, The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 December 2015:

The Australian, 4 June 2016:

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani may abandon his proposed $16 billion coalmine in central Queensland if environmentalists continue to delay the project in the courts.

In his first interview with the Australian media, Mr Adani said he was disappointed the “pit to plug’’ project had yet to receive the green light after six years of environmental assessments and court battles.

Mr Adani, who late last year appealed to Malcolm Turnbull to act over the legal activism, said he hoped the court challenges to Australia’s largest proposed coalmine would be finalised early next year.

With one court case yet to be heard in the Federal Court, and at least two groups threatening High Court action, Mr Adani warned he could not wait indefinitely. The self-made billionaire, who plans to export up to 60,000 tonnes a year of Australian coal through the Great Barrier Reef, said he was already scouting alternatives to feed his power stations in India.

“You can’t continue just holding,’’ he said at the headquarters of his $US26 billion ($36bn) energy and infrastructure conglomerate in Ahmedabad, northwest India. “I have been really disappointed that things have got too delayed.’’

Mr Adani confirmed he had met the Prime Minister last December to implore him to deliver greater certainty on projects like his proposed Carmichael mine. It is forecast to deliver thousands of jobs to the economically depressed central Queensland region. “We were suggesting how to bring in the certainty of the timings,’’ he said. “We were asking how we get certainty of the time schedules … that is the most important for us in committing all of our resources.’’

The Carmichael mine, rail and port project promises to open up the untapped Galilee coal province to other mega-mines, including one being planned by Gina Rinehart in a joint venture with another Indian giant, GVK.

Mr Adani’s comments come after the focus of the federal election this week turned to measures to tackle coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef and climate change…..

Australian Federal Election 2016: the lengths to which an Abbott-Turnbull Government will go

As the end of Week Three of the federal election campaign drew near a little plausible deniability was obviously called for………..

News.com.au, 27 May 2016:

THE FEDERAL government has had the nation axed from a UNESCO report on climate change and world heritage sites.

Every reference to Australia has been scrapped from the final version of the 87-page report, which detailed the impact of global warming on 31 natural and man-made world heritage sites around the world.

The initial “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate” report included a key chapter on the Great Barrier Reef. It also referenced Kakadu and the Tasmanian forests.

But the Australian Department of the Environment made sure every mention of Australia was removed, even though it lists other sites in the Asia Pacific region and says coral reefs are “particularly vulnerable” to climate change.

This means Australia is the only inhabited continent on the planet with no mentions in the report.

In a statement to news.com.au, the Environment Department confirmed it asked for references to Australia to be removed, saying it would have a negative impact on tourism:

“Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism.

“The department was concerned that the framing of the report confused two issues — the world heritage status of the sites and risks arising from climate change and tourism……

Here is the Department’s full statement:

The World Heritage Centre initiated contact with the Department of the Environment in early 2016 for our views on aspects of this report.

The Department expressed concern that giving the report the title “Destinations at risk” had the potential to cause considerable confusion. In particular, the World Heritage Committee had only six months earlier decided not to include the Great Barrier Reef on the in-danger list and commended Australia for the Reef 2050 Plan.

The Department was concerned that the framing of the report confused two issues – the world heritage status of the sites and risks arising from climate change and tourism. It is the World Heritage Committee, not its secretariat (the World Heritage Centre), which is properly charged with examining the status of World Heritage sites.

Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of World Heritage properties impacted on tourism.

The Department indicated it did not support any of Australia’s World Heritage properties being included in such a publication for the reasons outlined above.

The Department of the Environment conveyed these concerns through Australia’s Ambassador to UNESCO.

The Department did not brief the Minister on this issue. [my red bolding]

I’m not impressed Team Turnbull! Not only was it a foolish move when the world's media has been reporting on the effects of climate change on Australia's reef systems - there is no way that a government department is going to pressure the United Nations to alter a report without relevant ministers right up to the foreign minister and prime minister being aware.

Neither was lead author of this United Nations report, Adam Markham, the deputy director of climate and energy with the Union of Concerned Scientists impressed by the Turnbull Government's actions.

He issued this statement on behalf of the UCS:

Australia’s Iconic Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Site at Risk from Global Warming

Adam Markham, deputy director, Climate & Energy Program | May 26, 2016, 3:06 pm EDT

A lot has changed since Captain Cook became the first European to try to navigate the Great Barrier Reef in 1770. It was the reports of Cook and naturalist Joseph Banks on their return to England that first alerted the scientific world to the existence of this biological marvel. The Great Barrier Reef is now one of the world’s most important coastal and marine tourism areas, but its future is at risk, and climate change is the primary long-term threat.

A World Heritage site since 1981, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s most complex and diverse ecosystems, with at least 400 species of hard coral, 150 species of soft corals and sea fans, and more than 2,900 individual reefs and some of the most important seagrass meadows in the world. It teems with marine life of all sorts, including more than 1600 fish species, seabirds, seahorses, whales, dolphins, crocodiles, dugongs and endangered green turtles. The reef extends for 2,300km along the coast of Queensland in Northeast Australia and has evolved over a period of 15,000 years. The region is important for the indigenous heritage of First Australians who are Traditional Owners including Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander people. Climate change threatens hunting and fishing as well as other traditional and cultural practices. Some sacred sites are also at risk for the more than 70 Traditional Owner groups for whom natural resources are inseparable from cultural identity.

Tourism is an important economic driver

Today, tourism (including touring, diving, beaches, sailing, fishing and cruising) is the most important economic sector in the GBR communities, contributing $5.2 billion dollarsto the Australian economy in 2012 and supporting 64,000 jobs, or about 90% of the total economic activity in the region. Visitors spent nearly 43 million total nights in the GBR region in 2012, of which nearly 2 million nights were on the reef, mainly at Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands. Direct reef-related tourism alone contributes 4,800 jobs. Approximately 500 commercial boats operate bringing tourists out to dive and snorkel on the reef, and there can be negative impacts associated with this, including damage from fuel spills and walking and dropping anchors on fragile corals. Tourism infrastructure, along with other coastal developments, can cause habitat degradation and damaging pollution and sediment run-off. Australia is the world’s fourth largest coal producer and debate currently swirls around the risks embodied in plans to expand coal mining and coal shipping near the Great Barrier Reef.

Higher temperatures and ocean acidification threaten reefs

The biggest threat to the GBR today, and to its ecosystems services, biodiversity, heritage values and tourism economy, is climate change, including warming sea temperatures, accelerating rates of sea level rise, changing weather patterns and ocean acidification. Coral reefs worldwide are being directly impacted by warming waters and ocean acidification, and climate change is exacerbating other localized stresses. Ocean acidification is occurring because of increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A significant portion of this CO2 is being absorbed by the oceans and the resulting increases in seawater acidity reduces the capacity of some marine life, such as corals, to build their calcium carbonate based skeletons. Significant drops in coral growth rate have been recorded in the last two decades for massive Porites corals on the Great Barrier Reef.

Worst ever coral bleaching

Other significant threats to the reef include coastal development, agricultural run-off pollution, port-based shipping activities, illegal fishing and outbreaks of the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish. Assailed by multiple threats, the status of the GBR has been assessed as being poor and deteriorating. Half of its coral cover has been lost over the last three decades. Unusually high sea temperatures have caused nine mass coral bleaching events on the GBR since 1979, and until this year, the worst had been in 1998 and 2002 (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority 2012, Steffen et al 2009, Hughes et al 2015). But higher water temperatures and a severe El Nino have been pushing corals into the danger zone all over the world in 2015-16, and the Great Barrier Reef is currently suffering the most severe bleaching episode ever recorded.

Coral bleaching occurs when higher than usual maximum temperatures disrupt the relationship between corals and the photosynthetic zooxanthelae algae that live in their tissues in a vital and mutually beneficial biological relationship. Bleaching can kill corals, but depending on the severity of the impact and local factors they can also recover. The same is true for coral damage from storms, but damaged or bleached corals and reefs need time to recover. All indications are that bleaching events will become more frequent and tropical storms more intense with continued global warming, and that this combined with a continued trend in warming water and ocean acidification will be massively detrimental to the GBR. The current bleaching episode has affected more than 90% of the reef, with the worst damage being in the northern region where surveys have confirmed 50% mortality in some places.

Without global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions coupled with local management responses to increase resilience, current projections suggest that coral cover could decline to 5-10% of the GBR by the early 2020s from 28% in 1985—a potential loss of 80% in just 40 years. Similar fears are associated with one of the other keystone ecosystems of the GBR, seagrass meadows representing 20% of the world’s 72 seagrass species. These shallow-water habitats provide vital nursery areas for fish and shrimps, critical food resources for turtles and dugongs, and act as carbon sinks, sequestering organic carbon in marine sediments. The combination of agricultural runoff, fishery impacts and climate change may exceed seagrass beds’ natural ability to adapt. Sea turtles too are at risk from climate change as high temperatures and sea level rise impact their breeding and nesting beaches.

A need for action

Spurred by the direct evidence of climate change already impacting the GBR, degradation of the reefs and the likelihood of much worse to come, the Australian government has begun to plan and implement actions to reduce the risk of future damage. At the core of the adaptation strategy are efforts to build ecosystem resilience, fill gaps in scientific knowledge, and monitor environmental, social and economic impacts of climate change. Collaborative management strategies are also being developed and tested with local communities, Traditional Owners, as well as with business and industry. The GBR was also the first World Heritage property for which a comprehensive Tourism and Climate Change Action Strategy was developed. The strategy recognizes the vital importance that a healthy GBR ecosystem plays for the Australian economy and that the tourism industry must quickly come to grips with the problem. Recommended actions include reducing direct impacts and greenhouse gas emissions from tourism companies operating on or near the reef; increased training and awareness for guides and operators; helping to raise public understanding of the threat, and; supporting scientific research and monitoring activities. The plan also calls for the industry itself to plan adaptive responses for declining reef conditions and to contribute to risk management strategies for climate disasters.

Despite these measures, international concern has continued to grow, however, that without a comprehensive response more in keeping with the scale of the threat, the GBR’s extraordinary biodiversity and natural beauty may lose its World Heritage values. The World Conservation Outlook 2014 published by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) assessed the status of the World Heritage values of the GBR as of “high concern” and experiencing a deteriorating trend. The most recent strategy from the Australian government, the Reef 2050 Long-term Sustainability plan addressed this issue head on and has been designed to “ensure the Great Barrier Reef continues to improve on its Outstanding Universal Value every decade between now and 2050 to be a natural wonder for each successive generation to come”.

The full UNESCO report, World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate, can be read here.

The Great Barrier Reef: black letter days

It’s time to ask incumbent federal MPs and senators what they intend to do to when faced with legislative bills or ministerial decisions which have the potential to negatively impact on The Great Barrier Reef and to make it very clear that their answers will decide votes in July 2016.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April 2016:

Scientists surveying the mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef say only 7 per cent of Australia's environmental icon has been left untouched by the event.

The final results of plane and helicopter surveys by scientists involved in the National Coral Bleaching Taskforce has found that of the 911 reefs they observed, just 68 had escaped any sign of bleaching.

The severity of the bleaching is mixed across the barrier reef, with the northern stretches hit the hardest.

Overall, severe bleaching of between 60 and 100 per cent of coral was recorded on 316 reefs, almost all of them in the northern half of the barrier reef. Reefs in central and southern regions of the 2300 kilometre Great Barrier Reef have experienced more moderate to mild affects.

The mass bleaching event has been driven by significantly higher than average sea temperatures as a result of the current El Nino event, coupled with a long-term warming of the oceans due to climate change.

While the barrier reef has experienced mass coral bleaching events in the past – notably in 1998 and 2002 – Professor Terry Hughes, convenor of the bleaching taskforce, said the current event was by far the biggest.

Sky News, 24 March 2016:

*It could be too late to reverse the effects of coral bleaching in large swathes of the Great Barrier Reef caused by man-made climate change, a leading academic fears.

Professor Justin Marshall, from The University of Queensland's CoralWatch team, has just spent 10 days at the Lizard Island Research Station, north of Cairns, gathering data and images of coral bleaching in the northern part of the reef.

Prof Marshall said almost all of the coral in a 500km stretch of the reef was bleached and about half of that coral was dead because of the bleaching.

He said sometimes coral could recover from bleaching, where it becomes white after losing the symbiotic algae that brings it nutrients, but when there was large-scale coral death like in this situation, it was far less likely.

'The absolute figures are unknown and our research is ongoing to determine that,' Prof Marshall said.

'Over the next few months we'll be able to give you an answer, but to be honest I'm a bit pessimistic.'

Prof Marshall said the coral bleaching in the area was the worst he'd ever seen it.

'I have kids, I love to take them up to the reef, but to be honest, I would have been ashamed to take my children up there this time,' he said.

He said global warming was causing coral bleaching, which wasn't helped by El Nino conditions this year.

'There is an additional natural fluctuation, but that must not deflect our realisation that this is definitely a man-made, carbon-emission event, which is killing the Australian reef,' Prof Marshall said.....

ABC News, 28 March 2016:

An aerial survey of the northern Great Barrier Reef has shown that 95 per cent of the reefs are now severely bleached — far worse than previously thought.

Professor Terry Hughes, a coral reef expert based at James Cook University in Townsville who led the survey team, said the situation is now critical.

"This will change the Great Barrier Reef forever," Professor Hughes told 7.30.

"We're seeing huge levels of bleaching in the northern thousand-kilometre stretch of the Great Barrier Reef."

Of the 520 reefs he surveyed, only four showed no evidence of bleaching.

From Cairns to the Torres Strait, the once colourful ribbons of reef are a ghostly white.

"It's too early to tell precisely how many of the bleached coral will die, but judging from the extreme level even the most robust corals are snow white, I'd expect to see about half of those corals die in the coming month or so," Professor Hughes said.....

Professor Hughes said he is frustrated about the whole climate change debate.

"The government has not been listening to us for the past 20 years," he said.

"It has been inevitable that this bleaching event would happen, and now it has.

"We need to join the global community in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"For me, personally, it was devastating to look out of the chopper window and see reef after reef destroyed by bleaching.

"But really the emotion is not so much sadness as anger.

"I'm really angry that the government isn't listening to us, to the evidence we've been providing to them since 1998.".....