Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about an issue that's very close to my heart: the protection of our oceans and our marine life. In January, in the midst of our bushfire crisis, a new study on global ocean warming was published in the Advances in Atmospheric Sciences journal. The study found that the world's oceans were warmer in 2019 than at any other time in recorded history. This warming is not an isolated incident but part of a broader trend, with 2018 being the second-warmest year in history, 2017 the third-warmest, 2015 the fourth and 2016 the fifth. The authors of the report said that climate change is unequivocally to blame for the consistent increases in ocean temperatures. The lead author of the report, Professor Cheng, said that the huge amount of energy the ocean has absorbed could have devastating consequences. It could lead to supercharged typhoons and hurricanes, support marine heatwaves and cause damage to life on earth. Rising ocean temperatures are leading to reduced dissolved oxygen and sea level rise and are already increasing extreme weather events, including floods and bushfires. Ocean warming is more pronounced in the Atlantic and the Southern Ocean, where several severe heatwaves have also been recorded in the past decade.

In my home state of Western Australia, we know the impacts of ocean warming, unfortunately, all too well. In December 2019, Western Australia's coastline was in the midst of the most widespread marine heatwave it has experienced since reliable satellite monitoring began in 1993. The marine heatwave spread all the way from the Kimberley to South Australia. This brings back memories of the 2011 heatwave which saw sea surface temperatures in some parts of the Mid West and Gascoyne on the Western Australian coast reaching four to five degrees Celsius above average. This had a devastating impact on marine life, with scallop and blue swimmer crab populations declining, bleaching of the Ningaloo Reef and other reefs, and a 20 per cent decline in seagrass meadows in Shark Bay—the World Heritage area. The effects were seen in the south as well, with the lowest observed breeding levels of the little penguins on Penguin Island—which is just off Perth—in over 20 years and several tropical fish species being observed as far south as Rottnest Island. This recent warming event has been linked to a number of fish kills. We saw the deaths of tiny crabs on the Karratha mudflats, the deaths of wild oysters on the Pilbara coast and the deaths of 800 abalone and other shellfish species in the South West. We actually still don't know the full impact of that latest heatwave in Western Australia.

In the World Heritage listed area of Shark Bay—about which I have spoken in this place on a number of occasions—scientists believe it will take decades for the seagrass to recover from that heatwave in 2011. I'm extremely concerned about what impact the latest heatwave has had on Shark Bay. If the 2011 heatwave had that devastating impact on seagrass, which has multiplying effects because it's such a crucial nursery for many marine species in Shark Bay, I'm desperately concerned about what impact the 2019 heatwave has had on that area. We are yet to understand this current heatwave and what it will do to that fragile ecosystem that is of such global significance. What we do know is that these climate change fuelled events are drastically and dramatically altering the dynamics of marine life along our shores, and Western Australia, with our huge coastline, is feeling it hugely and will continue to.

It is absolutely imperative that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt the impacts and the progression of climate change. Now is not the time to be still debating the ideology on this. It is not a case of whether you believe in climate change. Climate change affects everything on our planet. And our precious marine environment which, some would argue, has taken a little bit longer to reflect that impact, is now reflecting it. We have to halt it, or our precious marine environment is also at desperate risk.