Great Barrier Reef hangs in the balance

The window to save the Great Barrier Reef is closing rapidly, according to a the most recent government report.

The Outlook report, which is released every 5 years by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), tracks the Reef’s health across 9 different areas, including biodiversity, ecosystem health, commercial use and heritage value.

The 2024 iteration of the report finds that, while there has been varied change in the overall health of the Reef – with some areas improving and others worsening – climate change is threatening its ability to recover.

The overall state of the Reef remained “poor”.

The report found that there was a “critical” need to limit global warming to 1.5°C to preserve the long-term health of the Reef.

This “requires achieving global net-zero carbon dioxide emissions in the early 2050s, followed by net-negative carbon dioxide emissions”.

Given sufficient opportunity – which includes local management as well as these emissions cuts – the report found that the Great Barrier Reef could recover.

But the report points out that an increase to temperatures of 1.5°C is “expected in the near-term irrespective of cuts to greenhouse gas emissions”, which will cause “substantial change” to the Reef.

The report mostly covers data to December 2023, which means it does not include the mass bleaching event that occurred earlier this year.

“The subsequent events of early 2024 provide a stark illustration of warnings articulated since the first Outlook Report was released in 2009,” points out the executive summary.

The Biodiversity Council, a collective based at the University of Melbourne, released a statement saying the report’s key findings “glossed over the gravity of the situation”.

The council said that, while the body of the report was “a major scientific effort [that] rigorously synthesises a huge amount of data”, demonstrating that the Reef was facing major long-term decline, the key findings made the situation seem less serious.

“The upbeat tone of the key findings contrast with the troubling detail held within the report,” said council member Professor Catherine Lovelock, a researcher at the University of Queensland.

“Climate change poses the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef. We must keep that front of mind and call for greater climate action.”