Great Barrier Reef

Widespread bleaching of reefs is devastating delicate ecosystems

Scientists are investigating reports of dying coral along a 1,100-kilometre stretch from Lizard Island in the north to Heron Island in the south.

Giant clams suffer similar struggles with warming water, though the consequences don’t seem quite as dire.

Australia for the first time has rejected a coal mining application based on environmental law, with the government minister citing the open-pit mine's potential harm to the nearby Great Barrier Reef.

Australia’s new government announced on Thursday, August 4, 2022, it plans to prevent development of a coal mine due to the potential impact on the nearby Great Barrier Reef.

Prof. Terry Hughes says he believes bleaching is under way as the Australian government conducts monitoring flights over 2,300-kilometre reef.

An appeals court on Tuesday, March 15, 2022, overturned a groundbreaking ruling that Australia’s environment minister had a duty to protect younger people against climate change.

Australia on Friday, July 23, 2021 garnered enough international support to defer an attempt by the United Nations’ cultural organization to downgrade the Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status because of damage caused by climate change.

The Chinese host of this year's meeting of the U.N. World Heritage Committee has defended the body's proposal to label the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger” against Australian government suspicion that China influenced the finding for political reasons.

Australia said on Tuesday, June 21, 2021, it will fight against plans to downgrade the Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status due to climate change, while environmentalists have applauded the U.N. World Heritage Committee’s proposal.

Scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization found it was theoretically possible to turn back the clock on the effect of decades of fossil fuel burning, but the radical step came with “as yet unquantified risks.”

Weaker sharks are less effective hunters, which can upset the balance of the ecosystem, say the authors of a study into the impacts of hotter oceans.

And that’s just the start of country’s policy-driven emissions disaster.

I am a climate scientist on holiday in the Blue Mountains, watching climate change in action

From melting ice caps to record-breaking wildfires, hurricanes and floods, the deadly consequences of human-caused global warming are here.