Chris McGrath
couriermail.com.au 9 Sep 08;
AT least Ross Garnaut was honest about the cost to our greatest natural treasure in his recent report on greenhouse gases.
Saying that Australia should initially aim for a global consensus to stabilise greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at 550 parts per million, he was brutally frank: "The 550 strategy would be expected to lead to the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs."
The Australian and Queensland governments have always avoided this point when explaining their climate policies. Neither has ever stated a stabilisation target for the rise in global temperatures or greenhouse gases. To do so would expose them to the criticism that their policies would not save the Great Barrier Reef and a host of other ecosystems.
Garnaut's frank admission reflects the findings of reef scientists who have been warning of the impacts of climate change to the Great Barrier Reef since mass coral bleaching occurred globally in 1998 and 2002.
Rising sea temperatures and increasing acidity of the oceans due to our use of fossil fuels are now well recognised as major threats to coral reefs in coming decades.
Dr Charlie Veron, former chief scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences in Townsville, reviewed the expected impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef in A Reef in Time: The Great Barrier Reef From Beginning to End.
"We are now facing the inescapable conclusion that the Great Barrier Reef, along with all the other coral reefs in the world, will be diminished beyond anything we have ever considered 'normal' as a direct result of human-induced climate change - and this will happen during the present century," Veron wrote.
Garnaut's frankness is welcome, but his conclusions leave us to wonder whether this is the best we can do. Should we just write off the Great Barrier Reef and the $7 billion it generates annually for the economy? Should we just write off the 66,000 jobs that go with it?
As a boy growing up in the Whitsundays in the 1970s, I did not dream the Great Barrier Reef would be severely damaged by human activity within my lifetime. Much less would I have dreamt that we would choose to allow these impacts to occur. Garnaut's targets are not ambitious enough and we should not accept them.
We should judge our climate-change policies by this simple test: Will we leave the Great Barrier Reef for our children? At present the answer is "no". We are all responsible for changing the answer to "yes".
The current science indicates our target should be stabilising atmospheric greenhouse gases at 350 parts per million, but Garnaut does not even mention this.
We do not know whether we can stabilise atmospheric greenhouse gases at 350, 450 or 550ppm, but think of it this way: If we wanted to build a bridge across a 1km-wide river, we would not ask our engineers and scientists to build us a bridge that was 500m long. We should apply the same logic to climate-change policy and set targets that produce the results we want to achieve.
We need vision, ambition and hard work to solve the climate crisis. Garnaut's approach lacks the vision and ambition that is needed. We need to add these ingredients to Australia's many hard workers to solve the climate crisis.
Dr Chris McGrath is a Brisbane barrister specialising in environmental law.
