Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senator Waters, move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) on 7 April 2020, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies released key findings from their aerial surveys of the Great Barrier Reef confirming that:

  (A) the Great Barrier Reef has just experienced its fifth mass coral bleaching – the third in five years, and

  (B) one quarter of reefs within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park experienced severe coral bleaching over the past summer;

(ii) the recorded bleaching is the most widespread bleaching event on record having, for the first time, struck all three regions of the Great Barrier Reef – the northern, central and now the southern sectors,

(iii) the Great Barrier Reef supports approximately 64,000 jobs and generates $6.4 billion for the Australian economy annually,

(iv) United Nations scientific reports have confirmed that if global temperature rises by 1.5°C, 90 % of coral in the Great Barrier Reef will be lost, and if global temperature reaches 2.0°C, 100 % of coral will be lost, and

(v) without urgent action to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases, the Great Barrier Reef will continue to suffer; and

(b) calls on the Federal Government to:

(i) implement a climate policy that accelerates actions to limit global warming to 1.5°C, and

(ii) take all necessary action to avoid the the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Committee needing to place the Great Barrier Reef on the World Heritage In Danger List.