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

My question is to Senator Wong, representing the climate minister. Minister, another UNESCO scientific report has recommended that the Great Barrier Reef be put on the World Heritage in danger list because its outstanding universal values are threatened by climate change. In responding to the report this morning, the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, publicly acknowledged that we need to keep warming below 1.5 degrees to save the Great Barrier Reef. Minister, your government's legislated 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 is consistent with two degrees of global warming, and the science tells us that this is a death sentence for the reef as we have known it. Millions of Australians who love the reef won't be fooled by this apparent cognitive dissonance. Minister, what is it going to be: a climate plan that limits global warming to 1.5 degrees, and gives the reef a chance, or to two degrees and a death sentence to the reef as we have been lucky enough to have known it in our lifetimes?