2 August 2023, The Guardian: Australia is not being ‘singled out’ by Unesco’s in-danger recommendation for the Great Barrier Reef. Australia has the wealth, technology and resources to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Until this happens, it is not doing all it can to protect the reef. The latest update from Unesco on the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area has been widely misreported as a decision to not place the reef on the world heritage “in danger” list. In reality, Unesco has simply postponed the next consideration of an in-danger listing until the 2024 meeting of the world heritage committee. Unesco has acknowledged some recent improvements reported to them by the commonwealth and Queensland governments, such as a promised ban on gill nets as well as some additional investments in culling starfish and small-scale reef restoration. But buried deep within the diplomatic language of Unesco’s latest assessment is an acknowledgment of the slow speed of progress being made on meeting targets for reducing coastal pollution, and of Australia’s inadequate responses to the escalating impacts of climate change. Read more here
Tag Archives: oceans
1 August 2023, The Conversation: Antarctica is missing a chunk of sea ice bigger than Greenland – what’s going on? Deadly heatwaves, raging wildfires and record global temperatures are upon us. But far from the flames, at the southernmost tip of the planet, something … Continue reading →
27 July 2023, NOAA: Has climate change already affected ENSO? This is a guest post by Mike McPhaden, who is a senior scientist at NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, WA. Mike has previously blogged with us and was lead editor of the book “El … Continue reading →
5 July 2023, The Conversation: An El Niño event has arrived, according to the World Meteorological Organization, raising fears of record high global temperatures, extreme weather and, in Australia, a severe fire season. The El Niño is a reminder that bushfires are part of Australian life – especially as human-caused global warming worsens. But there are a few important considerations to note. First, not all El Niño years result in bad bushfires. The presence of an El Niño is only one factor that determines the prevalence of bushfires. Other factors, such as the presence of drought, also come into play. And second, whether or not this fire season is a bad one, Australia must find a more sustainable and effective way to manage bushfires. The El Niño threat only makes the task more urgent. But before we start planning ahead for the next bushfire season, it’s important to understand what drives bushfire risks – and the influence of climate change, fire management and events such as El Niño. The evidence for human-induced climate change is irrefutable. While the global climate has changed significantly in the past, the current changes are occurring at an unprecedented rate. In geologic time scales, before the influence of humans, a significant shift in climate has been associated with an increase in fire activity in Australia. There is every reason to expect fire activity will increase with human-induced climate change as well. Humans have also changed the Australian fire landscape – both First Nations people and, for the past 200 years, European colonisers. Changes brought about by Indigenous Australians were widespread, but sustainable. Their methods included, for example, lighting “cool” fires in small, targeted patches early in the dry season. This reduced the chance that very large and intense fires would develop. Read more here