Great
Barrier Reef
Australia
scrubbed from UN climate change report after government intervention
Exclusive:
All mentions of Australia were removed from the final version of a
Unesco report on climate change and world heritage sites after the
Australian government objected on the grounds it could impact on
tourism
Michael Slezak
Thursday 26 May 2016
21.07 BST Last modified on Friday 27 May 2016 02.31 BST
Every reference to
Australia was scrubbed from the final version of a major UN report on
climate change after the Australian government intervened, objecting
that the information could harm tourism.
Guardian Australia
can reveal the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing
Climate”, which Unesco jointly published with the United Nations
environment program and the Union of Concerned Scientists on Friday,
initially had a key chapter on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as
small sections on Kakadu and the Tasmanian forests.
But when the
Australian Department of Environment saw a draft of the report, it
objected, and every mention of Australia was removed by Unesco. Will
Steffen, one of the scientific reviewers of the axed section on the
reef, said Australia’s move was reminiscent of “the old Soviet
Union”.
No sections about
any other country were removed from the report. The removals left
Australia as the only inhabited continent on the planet with no
mentions.
Explaining the
decision to object to the report, a spokesperson for the environment
department told Guardian Australia: “Recent experience in Australia
had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage
properties impacted on tourism.”
As a result of
climate change combined with weather phenomena, the Great Barrier
Reef is in the midst of the worst crisis in recorded history.
Unusually warm water has caused 93% of the reefs along the 2,300km
site to experience bleaching. In the northern most pristine part,
scientists think half the coral might have died.
The omission was
“frankly astounding,” Steffen said.
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Steffen is an
emeritus professor at the Australian National University and head of
Australia’s Climate Council. He was previously executive director
of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, where he worked
with 50 countries on global change science.
“I’ve spent a
lot of my career working internationally,” Steffen said. “And
it’s very rare that I would see something like this happening.
Perhaps in the old Soviet Union you would see this sort of thing
happening, where governments would quash information because they
didn’t like it. But not in western democracies. I haven’t seen it
happen before.”
The news comes less
than a year after the Australian government successfully lobbied
Unesco to not list the Great Barrier Reef in its list of “World
Heritage Sites in Danger”.
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The removals
occurred in early 2016, during a period when there was significant
pressure on the Australian government in relation to both climate
change and world heritage sites.
At the time, news of
the government’s science research agency CSIRO sacking 100 climate
scientists due to government budget cuts had just emerged; parts of
the Tasmanian world heritage forests were on fire for the first time
in recorded history; and a global coral bleaching event was beginning
to hit the Great Barrier Reef – another event driven by global
warming.
The environment
department spokesperson told Guardian Australia: “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.”
The report said the
case studies were chosen partly because of their geographic
representation, their importance for tourism and the robustness of
evidence around the impact of climate change on them.
Burnt alpine
vegetation at the Lake Mackenzie fire in Tasmania
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Burnt alpine
vegetation at the Lake Mackenzie fire in Tasmania. Photograph: Rob
Blakers for the Guardian
A recent study found
the conditions that cause the current bleaching on the Great Barrier
Reef was made at least 175 times more likely by climate change and,
on the current trajectory, would become the average conditions within
20 years.
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Without mentioning
the Great Barrier Reef, the report notes: “Research suggests that
preserving more than 10% of the world’s corals would require
limiting warming to 1.5C or less, and protecting 50% would mean
halting warming at 1.2C (Frieler et al. 2012).”
The full statement
from the environment department said:
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.”
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