excerpt from The Tree:

Two reports have undermined the Abbott Government’s rosy claims about the health of Australia’s World Heritage Great Barrier Reef. TheQueensland Auditor-General has released a scathing report on government efforts to improve the reef’s water quality, finding efforts to cut coral-killing runoff have been ineffective, and that information lacked transparency and misleading. A second report, by the Environmental Justice Australia and the US-based Earthjustice, has also found that the Reef’s current state meets as many as six of the eight criteria UNESCO uses in its “in danger” assessments. UNESCO only needs one for an “in danger” listing. Water quality and sediment issues are having a severe impact on the reef, but despite having knowledge of a report contradicting the government’s exaggerated claims of progress tackling these issues for several weeks, Environment Minister Greg Hunt pushed a misleading “report card” to UNESCO.

This move, part of a $218,000 lobbying effort detailed in documents obtained under FOI, resulted in a draft ruling not to list the natural icon as “in danger”, allowing massive coal projects to go ahead –assuming they don’t fall over economically first. The Federal government’s lobbying strategy may have avoided a negative listing for now, but UNESCO’s verdict was still not positive. The future of the reef and the $5 billion it contributes to the economy annually remains under serious threat if Australia keeps trying to export dirty coal to the world. Tourism operators are already being warned to stop using picturesque underwater photos of bright pink and yellow coral, as the reality is declining water quality is now so poor in places tourists cannot swim or snorkel…

• Sign: Standard chartered: Coral, not coal (Greenpeace)
• Satire to share: UNESCO Downgrades Icon To ‘Good Barrier Reef’ (SBS)
• Hashtags in use: #savethereef #SOSReef #FightForTheReef #UNESCO #coal #climate

The Arctic is the “canary in the coal mine” of global warming. Over the past 50 years Arctic winters have gotten a whole lot warmer,rising in temperature by an average of 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit. With the region warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, changes in the Arctic are providing a preview of what is to come if climate change is not stopped. The picture is not pretty: the Arctic is suffering increasing coastal erosion, more acidic oceans, earlier spring snowmelt, drier landscapes, and more extensive wildfires. Significant habitat changes are also pushing many species—including the iconic polar bear—to the very brink of extinction.

The United States is taking over chairmanship of the Arctic Council at a challenging and critical time. Thanks to melting sea ice caused by climate change, the Arctic is opening up. This means that Arctic nations could soon begin sparring over new shipping routes and access to remote oil and gas deposits. At the same time, the region is being hit hard. Climate change is directly impacting the Arctic ecosystem. Rising sea levels are upending coastal settlements, while gas flaring is coating sea ice in a nasty layer of black carbon that speeds the melting  causing over a million premature deaths each year from respiratory and heart disease.

If the United States wants to protect the Arctic from climate change, it can’t allow any more oil and gas drilling in the region. The Obama Administration has a unique ability to use its chairmanship of the Arctic Council to chart a new course for climate leadership in the region. According to a peer-reviewed study recently published in Nature, the world must choose between drilling for Arctic oil and maintaining a safe, liveable climate. Showing leadership on climate means cutting carbon emissions—not greenlighting oil companies’ risky plans to place new drilling rigs in the Arctic Circle.

Coverage

• US’ Kerry bids to avert Arctic melt (RTCC)
• Climate concerns take top billing as the US pivots to the Arctic (TckTckTck)
• Iqaluit to welcome Arctic Council meeting Friday (CBC)
• Major changes loom in Arctic as US leads Council (Climate Central)
• John Kerry’s mission to save the Arctic (ThinkProgress)
  US takes lead in bid to cope with Arctic meltdown (ClimateWire)
• As US assumes Arctic Council chairmanship, new report emphasizes cooperation over conflict (Phys.org)
• Canada’s Arctic Council leadership to be handed over at Iqaluit meeting (Canadian Press)

Momentum continues to build for the next UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Paris this December, with nations realising the huge benefits of climate action and getting on with the job of developing their national emissions reduction plans for the negotiations. These action plans – known as “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” (INDCs) – marry national goals reflecting individual circumstances and ambitions with a UN framework to keep average global warming below the internationally agreed 2DegC red line.

So far, Switzerland, the European Union, Norway, and Mexico have all submitted plans, but Australia has further cemented its reputation as a coal-obsessed wrecker by not only ignoring the deadline, but dragging its feet and only now calling for public submissions on what it should do. Its discussion paper ignores the 2DegC red line, it attempts to cook the books (again) by describing its current target as “equivalent to a reduction of 13 per cent below 2005 levels” instead of referring to its inadequate five percent below 1990 levels commitment. It also totally ignores the “5-25 per cent range” ittrumpeted in early 2010.

While the rest of the world moves forward, Australia’s climate change policy is “on course for ‘disastrous’ 4DegC warming” as it allows polluters to increase emissions as much as they like without penalty. While railing against the age of entitlement, the Abbott government is looking for special treatment to keep burning and selling coal. It claims it is determined to reduce emissions “without destroying jobs”, but its actions demonstrate that it does not understand the health, employment, environmental and economic benefits that come with cleaning up its economy. The Government has been captured by a dying coal industry, is fighting the future for it, and dooming Australia to climate pariah status on the world stage for its dim prospects.

Related Tree Alerts

• Australia cooking the books to meet emissions target as carbon pollution soars
• Climate Change Authority finds Australia’s 5% emissions target “not credible”
• Australia on a wing and a prayer as momentum builds for global climate deal
• Study shows keeping most coal in the ground is the only way to contain climate change
• Australian government’s “hard-line ideological agenda” at COP19 damaging reputation

Tweets…

• MT @Mattias_S: #Australia – when can we expect your #climate contributions, #INDC , You’re already behind #Mexico – Is that leadership?

• MT @MattGrudnoff: PM ‘Australia open for business’. Unless you’re an industry the govt is ideologically opposed to #auspol #climate http://t.co/E7UjKBOIqS

• MT @fionamcrobie: Submissions on Australia’s post-2020 emissions reduction target can be made here: http://t.co/v65OQQe89B #auspol #climate