Unesco Recommends Against Great Barrier Reef 'in Danger' Listing But Australia Warned More Action Needed

UN scientific advisors have recommended the Great Barrier Reef not be placed on a list of World Heritage sites "in danger" but stressed the planet's biggest coral reef system remains under "serious threat" from global heating and water pollution. From a report: Unesco said in a report that the Australian government had taken positive steps to protect the reef since a UN monitoring mission visited Queensland in March last year. But Unesco has in effect put Australia on notice, as it recommended the government provide a progress report in February before the reef is considered for inscription on the "in danger" list again in 2024. The government said the report was confirmation it was acting on climate change and "working hard to protect the reef, and that the rest of the world has taken notice."

Just last month

[guruevi]

There were articles here on /. about how the heat wave was causing the reefs to collapse faster than ever before. Apparently things recovered without much material changing in either Australia or China's policy around pollution nor any reduction in global temperatures.

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[test321]

Can you provide a source for the recovery? Unesco does not say it's not in danger, just that it's not going to be written on the "List of World Heritage in Danger". Unesco says it's in "serious threat", but the list is a diplomatic thing. Australia took the measures that Unesco had asked last year, so Unesco now releases the pressure on Australia.

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[guruevi]

If it's no longer in danger, then that means it's not in danger from current levels of pollution and temperature fluctuations. Words have meaning.

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[thegarbz]

They do, but unfortunately for you those meanings don't come from the Collins dictionary, they come from the UN, specifically Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage - article 11.4 gives the exact definition of what constitutes danger, and climate change isn't one of them, because that would make the list pointless.

Australia is not serious about CO2 emissions.

[MacMann]

I'll believe Australia is taking their CO2 emissions seriously when they start building nuclear fission nuclear power plants. This is not unique to Australia, any nation taking CO2 emissions seriously should be turning to nuclear fission to replace fossil fuels.

Australia is converting their navy's submarine fleet to nuclear power, and that is a step in the right direction. Perhaps that is the start of a civil nuclear power program. Those trained in nuclear power in the navy can at the end of their servic

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[BeaverCleaver]

Australia is converting their navy's submarine fleet to nuclear power, and that is a step in the right direction. Perhaps that is the start of a civil nuclear power program. Those trained in nuclear power in the navy can at the end of their service contract use those skills in operating civil nuclear power plants.

No, it's blatant pandering to their masters in the USA and UK, and antagonising their biggest customer for zero strategic benefit. The submarine deal is going to cost AUD368 billion over the next few years: https://theconversation.com/ho... [theconversation.com]
This is enough money to make all healthcare free in Australia, wipe student debt, and make all education free. Or, from the article I linked, "Australia’s decision to buy three nuclear-powered submarines and build another eight is so expensive that, for the A$268 bi

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[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

... trained in nuclear power in the navy ...

Military training rarely translates to civilian jobs, it's why the military emphasizes decision-making and leadership abilities in their advertising.

... navy's submarine fleet ...

The current fleet (Collins class) is past EoL, so Australia needs to buy modern submarines immediately but the USA only sells EoL vessels: Always a bad deal, cost-wise and capability-wise. In consequence, Australia will build new submarines to replace the just-purchased fleet of EoL submarines (Alabama class). So Australia is buying 2 fleets (a 'my first car

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[thegarbz]

I'll believe Australia is taking their CO2 emissions seriously when they start building nuclear fission nuclear power plants.

No one will take you seriously until you start looking at solutions that can actually be implemented in any meaningful timeframe to avert CO2 emissions related disasters.

You don't stand on a train track looking at an oncoming train and then commission a project move the train tracks around you. Doing so will achieve only someone having to wipe the left over bloody goo from the front of the train.

Australia is failing miserably at curbing CO2 emissions. Your proposal is failing even worse.

Nobody cares, literally

[xwin]

These types of statements pop up all the time but almost nobody gives a crap. In CA/Bay Area, which should be progressive and all that shit, people routinely sitting in the car idling and running AC. All one needs to do is open the window or step out of the car. Commute is just as bad as pre-pandemic. All CEOs want their people in the office, global warming be damned.
Gadgets can't be repaired, just buy a new one, move the economy. People do not care and will not care until things get really bad. I hope all

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[RobinH]

People choose the easier path about 95% of the time (my made up statistic, but generally true). If your solution is, "people just need to make selfless choices that benefit everyone else a tiny bit at their own short term expense" then that plan isn't going to work. Make pollution more expensive and less convenient than cleaner technologies, and people's behavior will change. Also, it's surprising what people will do if you offer them free pizza. Or beer. Or cake. Those three things are far more effec

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[BeaverCleaver]

Also, it's surprising what people will do if you offer them free pizza. Or beer. Or cake. Those three things are far more effective at manipulating behavior than money, in my experience.

I think this must be written in some management textbook, or taught at MBA school. In my distant youth when I worked retail, transport and other low-paying jobs, I saw this all the time. Management demanded all kinds of unpaid work, expecting the minimum-wage employees to compete for pizza or cake or whatever. No, if they just PAID us more we could have bought our own fucking pizza. Or they could have hired more workers, so that the existing workers weren't expected to do extra shifts without warning.

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[RobinH]

No, it's because people who work in retail or other low income work just don't generally pass the marshmallow test. My favourite story is from a coworker who used to work as a manager at a call center. He said he'd have trouble getting people to come in on certain shifts. They tried offering shift bonuses and other monetary incentives and it didn't work, but offering pizza worked like a charm. The weird thing was that the monetary incentives were significantly more than the retail cost of the pizza. We

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[BeaverCleaver]

Without knowing anything about your coworker, we should also allow for the possibility that he was just not a very good manager. Plenty of intelligent, motivated people work menial jobs for all kinds of reasons (had to move interstate/internationally at short notice, trying to get a foot on the first rung of the ladder, involuntarily redundant at their last job etc) and suggesting that these human beings "don't pass the marshmallow test" is an easy way for management to justify doing THEIR jobs badly too. T

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[Brett Buck]

you know why nobody cares? Because the credibility of the entire topic of global warming is nearly zero. You make one dire and more hysterical prediction after another, they fail, everyone pays less attention, so you come up with another, even more ridiculous prediction/tipping point/point of no return.

        It all makes the entire topic look as if it was dominated by cranks and doomsday cultists - which, for the most part, it is.

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[MightyMartian]

Well, except if the models were wrong, it was because they were too damned conservative.

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[lsllll]

Be careful. Some douche will come out of nowhere and call you conservative, just like he did to me [slashdot.org] (3rd post down), even though I have said over and over that I'm left of center and in the middle of the lower left quadrant on the Polical Compass test [politicalcompass.org].

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[sdinfoserv]

Except - the models were not wrong, there were amazingly accurate - even the models from the 1970s created by Exxon Mobile engineers causing the company to start a 50 year disinformation campaign. As someone else pointe out - the models were too conservative. They failed to take into account feedback loop which is making things hotter sooner than anticipated.

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[BeaverCleaver]

These types of statements pop up all the time but almost nobody gives a crap. In CA/Bay Area, which should be progressive and all that shit, people routinely sitting in the car idling and running AC. All one needs to do is open the window or step out of the car.

I see this too. Yes, people are lazy and selfish, but if hydrocarbon fuel was more expensive, perhaps this kind of silliness would be reduced. Higher fuel taxes would reduce wastage of fuel (seriously, oil is useful for so many industrial processes. Just *burning* the stuff is madness!) and the revenue raised could be used to build non-car infrastructure like railways.

But I predict it will never happen because we have this narrative in the West that "taxes = bad."

start seeding reefs in colder water

[migos]

Climate change is here to stay. It's time to start seeding new reefs and building structures in colder waters.

Global problem

[manu0601]

Australia has to takes its part of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but that will not save coral reefs. The cannot stop CO2 and heat at the border.

Re: Global problem

[Anonymouse Cowtard]

Australia is home to the world's biggest coal export terminal. So once China invades Taiwan that will be 300m tonnes per year that won't be exported and burnt. Silver linings and that.

linahs

[SaintOtis12]

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