New video footage released on April 11, 2024 shows that bleached corals on the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef extend to greater depths than has been reported during the current mass bleaching event. Australian Marine Conservation Society / Facebook screenshot
The Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) has released video footage showing that the southern portion of the Great Barrier Reef is suffering from deep-sea coral bleaching, reported The Guardian.
The footage shows that the bleaching extends at least as far down as 59.1 feet — the deepest reported during this mass bleaching event, a press release from AMCS said. Some of the corals have begun to die in the face of record marine heat waves.
“I feel devastated. This bleaching event is the worst I have seen. It’s a severe bleaching event,” said Dr. Selina Ward, University of Queensland’s former academic director of the Heron Island Research Station, in the press release.
Ward reported extensive coral bleaching at all 16 southern Great Barrier Reef sites she had visited, saying it was the worst she had seen in three decades.
“I’ve been working on the Reef since 1992 but this [mass coral bleaching event], I’m really struggling with. The diversity of species involved has been hard to deal with. Look at bleached areas, there are many different species that are bleached – many of which are pretty resistant to bleaching so it’s not a pleasant one,” Ward added.
Last week, aerial survey data showed that 75 percent of the reef had experienced bleaching during the current bleaching event, with much of it classed as “high to extreme bleaching.”
During climate change-driven marine heat waves, extended periods of warmer ocean temperatures cause corals to become stressed, which leads them to expel the algae that live in a symbiotic relationship with them. These algae not only give corals their colorful appearance, but they are also their main source of energy, so long periods without them can lead to starvation.
“This new footage shows extensive coral bleaching in southern reefs, but there are images from the central and northern parts that show bleaching is extensive and severe in some of those areas too. Although in-water surveys will take months, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has completed the aerial surveys but only released the data. The authority must urgently release the maps to show to the public the extent and severity of this bleaching event,” said Dr. Lissa Schindler, campaign manager with AMCS, in the press release.
Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year and numerous weather disasters occurred as climate change reared its head.
How did Australia’s environment fare against this onslaught? In short, 2023 was a year of opposites.
For the past nine years, we have trawled through huge volumes of data collected by satellites, measurement stations and surveys by individuals and agencies. We include data on global change, oceans, people, weather, water, soils, vegetation, fire and biodiversity.
Each year, we analyse those data, summarising them in an annual report that includes an overall Environmental Condition Score and regional scorecards. These scores provide a relative measure of conditions for agriculture and ecosystems. Scores declined across the country, except in the Northern Territory, but were still relatively good.
However, the updated Threatened Species Index shows the abundance of listed bird, mammal and plant species has continued to decline at a rate of about 3% a year since the turn of the century.
Environmental condition indicators for 2023, showing the changes from 2000–2022 average values. Such differences can be part of a long-term trend or within normal variability. Australia’s Environment 2023 Report.
Riding a climate rollercoaster in 2023
Worldwide, 77 countries broke temperature records. Australia was not one of them. Our annual average temperature was 0.53°C below the horror year 2019. Temperatures in the seas around us were below the records of 2022.
Even so, 2023 was among Australia’s eight warmest years in both cases. All eight came after 2005.
However, those numbers are averaged over the year. Dig a bit deeper and it becomes clear 2023 was a climate rollercoaster.
The year started as wet as the previous year ended, but dry and unseasonably warm weather set in from May to October. Soils and wetlands across much of the country started drying rapidly. In the eastern states, the fire season started as early as August.
Nonetheless, there was generally still enough water to support good vegetation growth throughout the unusually warm and sunny winter months.
Fears of a severe fire season were not realised as El Niño’s influence waned in November and rainfall returned, in part due to the warm oceans. Combined with relatively high temperatures, it made for a hot and humid summer. A tropical cyclone and several severe storms caused flooding in Queensland and Victoria in December.
As always, there were regional differences. Northern Australia experienced the best rainfall and growth conditions in several years. This contributed to more grass fires than average during the dry season. On the other hand, the rain did not return to Western Australia and Tasmania, which ended the year dry.
So how did scores change?
Every year we calculate an Environmental Condition Score that combines weather, water and vegetation data.
The national score was 7.5 (out of 10). That was 1.2 points lower than for 2022, but still the second-highest score since 2011.
Scores declined across the country except for the Northern Territory, which chalked up a score of 8.8 thanks to a strong monsoon season. With signs of drought developing in parts of Western Australia, it had the lowest score of 5.5.
The Environmental Condition Score reflects environmental conditions, but does not measure the long-term health of natural ecosystems and biodiversity.
Firstly, it relates only to the land and not our oceans. Marine heatwaves damaged ecosystems along the eastern coast. Surveys in the first half of 2023 suggested the recovery of the Great Barrier Reef plateaued.
However, a cyclone and rising ocean temperatures occurred later in the year. In early 2024, another mass coral bleaching event developed.
Secondly, the score does not capture important processes affecting our many threatened species. Among the greatest dangers are invasive pests and diseases, habitat destruction and damage from severe weather events such as heatwaves and megafires.
Threatened species’ declines continued
The Threatened Species Index captures data from long-term threatened species monitoring. The index is updated annually with a three-year lag, largely due to delays in data processing and sharing. This means the 2023 index includes data up to 2020.
The index showed an unrelenting decline of about 3% in the abundance of Australia’s threatened bird, mammal and plant species each year. This amounts to an overall decline of 61% from 2000 to 2020.
Threatened Species Index showing the abundance of different categories of species listed under the EPBC Act relative to 2000. Australia’s Environment 2023 Report
The index for birds in 2023 revealed declines were most severe for terrestrial birds (62%), followed by migratory shorebirds (47%) and marine birds (24%).
A record 130 species were added to Australia’s threatened species lists in 2023. That’s many more than the annual average of 29 species over previous years. The 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires had direct impacts on half the newly listed species.
Population boom adds to pressures
Australia’s population passed 27 million in 2023, a stunning increase of 8 million, or 41%, since 2000. Those extra people all needed living space, food, electricity and transport.
Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 18% since 2000. Despite small declines in the previous four years, emissions increased again in 2023, mostly due to air travel rebounding after COVID-19.
Our governments have an obvious role to play, but we can do a lot as individuals. We can even save money, by switching to renewable energy and electric vehicles and by eating less beef.
Changing our behaviour will not stop climate change in its tracks, but will slow it down over the next decades and ultimately reverse it. We cannot reverse or even stop all damage to our environment, but we can certainly do much better.
As the days shorten, many of us, particularly in Australia’s south-east, are looking forward to cooler times, and perhaps the allure of snow on the horizon. In the past week many in this region experienced their warmest days for over a century. What does this bode for times to come?
Research released overnight suggests ski areas in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand will soon have much less snow due to climate change. German researcher Veronika Mitterwallner and her colleagues show average annual snow-cover days may decline by 78% in the Australian Alps and 51% in the Southern Alps of Aotearoa New Zealand (under a high-emissions scenario) by 2071–2100. Worldwide, they found 13% of ski areas will lose all natural snow cover by the end of the century.
It’s often said Australia gets more snow than Switzerland, though the evidence says otherwise. The fact remains that the Australian Alps cover a large area, more than 12,000km, with a third or more covered in snow at peak times. So these changes will have a broad impact on local economies and threaten fragile alpine ecosystems.
If Australia loses three-quarters of its snow-cover days, a surprisingly big area will be affected. Greg Brave/Shutterstock
How did the study make these findings?
Mitterwallner’s team used a high-resolution climate data set for the global land surface area to identify the annual number of natural snow-cover days. Then, they projected those data under three emissions scenarios, and looked at historical (1950-2010), present (2011-2040), immediate future (2041-2070) and near future (2071-2100) data to examine changes over time.
Under most modelled emission scenarios, they found the annual number of snow-cover days will greatly decrease worldwide. For Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, in particular, they found the average number will decrease by 78% and 51% respectively. These were the two regions with the greatest losses of snow.
However, under a low-emissions scenario, the good news is no regions will fall below an average of 100 snow-cover days a year. This is historically the minimum number of days a ski resort needs in seven out of ten winters to remain viable (cover must be at least 30–50cm).
How will we adapt to the loss of snow?
Will the way we use our alpine areas have to change permanently? Many resorts have already pivoted to activities such as mountain biking that don’t rely on snow. Skiing may be off the agenda – tennis anyone?
The prognosis of such research has driven the formation of groups such as Protect Our Winters. The mission of the Australian section is to help Australia’s outdoor community protect the integrity of our unique alpine environment and lifestyle from climate change.
What is going on? And what might this new research mean, particularly for Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand?
These predictions, for almost all emissions scenarios, do not bode well for the skiers among us. More importantly, as many communities in the Himalaya are finding out, snow is not just a recreational “nice to have”. It’s a life-source for alpine communities, both human and non-human, and all those that depend on rivers sustained by snow melt around the globe.
Perhaps a greater concern in our region is the potential for ecological damage as resorts seek to increase ski slope metreage in areas that remain snow-covered. Expanding resort footprints is not a sustainable approach to a problem that probably won’t be going away.
Resorts can make artificial snow, but that doesn’t solve the problem of it melting if the alps get warmer. Edward Atkin/Shutterstock
Is artificial snow an option?
So how might we support the goals of Protect Our Winters? What alternatives do we have? How about artificial snow, would that work?
As part of my PhD studies many years ago, at the University of Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute, I made masses of “polar snow” in a cold room (while effectively destroying the air-conditioning units at the same time). Artificial snow can be created quite readily, assuming enough water is at hand.
Artificial snow will have a different form and its density and microstructure will differ, potentially affecting longevity. (You can read more about snow mechanics here.)
But once on the ground, artificial snow, like natural snow, is subject to the vagaries of our weather. If the sun is shining and the day is hot, snow won’t last long, regardless of whether it’s natural or artificial.
There’s a lot to think on here as we contemplate what our world and our region might look like when skiing and snow-covered ground become no more than a memory in some areas. Yes, our recreational activities might change as we wonder whether it’s worth waxing up the skis this year – or is it time to break out the racquets? The ongoing survival of many communities might be jeopardised as a result.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong speaks in Canberra on August 8, 2023. (Photo: Penny Wong/Facebook)
“Restoring UNRWA funding is the bare minimum,” said one Australian Green senator. “The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza.”
Australia said Friday that it would reinstate funding for the United Nations United Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in international financing due to unsubstantiated Israeli claims that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.
“The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in Adelaide while announcing a new funding package for the agency, which works to aid Palestinians forcibly displaced during the Nakba, or “catastrophe” through which the modern state of Israel was established in 1948, as well as their descendants.
Australia is lifting the pause on funding for UNRWA following steps to strengthen the integrity of UNRWA operations. pic.twitter.com/RD5FhRH7B2
In addition to restoring $6 million in UNRWA funding, Wong said Australia would contribute another $2 million to the United Nations Children’s Fund and would deploy a C-17 Globemaster transport plane to assist humanitarian airdrops over Gaza.
Sen. Mehreen Faruqi of New South Wales and the Australian Greens welcomed the shift, asserting that “restoring UNRWA funding is the bare minimum” Australia should do.
“The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza,” Faruqi stressed. “Starvation is a weapon of war, and Israel is blocking aid to reach the people of Gaza in brazen contravention of the [International Court of Justice’s] ruling” ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts.
“I hope this is the start of the Labor government breaking away from their unquestioning and immoral support for Israel,” the senator added.
Imagine basically stealing food from starving people, then months later giving it back and expecting gratitude.
Simon Birmingham, leader of the center-right Liberal opposition in the Senate, said his party does not support the Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “acting without and ahead of the United States in terms of decisions around this funding.”
Following Israeli claims—reportedly extracted from Palestinian prisoners in an interrogation regime rife with torture and abuse—that 12 of the more than 13,000 UNRWA workers in Gaza were involved in the October 7 attack, Australia and nine other nations including the United States cut off funding to the largest humanitarian aid organization operating in the besieged coastal enclave.
UNRWA subsequently terminated nine employees in response to the unfounded Israeli claims, without any evidence to support their firing. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini later called the move an act of “reverse due process.”
Thank you #Australia for joining donor countries who have maintained/increased their funding and those who have recently announced their contribution to @UNRWA at this critical time in #Gaza and the region.
Your support is testament to your commitment to humanitarian principles…
The European Union and nations including Canada and Sweden have also reinstated funding for UNRWA, which Lazzarini said “is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations.” The agency has been struggling to provide shelter, aid, and other lifesaving services to Gazans facing not only Israeli bombs and bullets but also a genocidal siege and blockade that are starving Palestinians to death.
Australia’s decision came as Israeli attacks on aid convoys, food distribution centers, and desperate, starving Palestinians in Gaza continued. On Thursday, Israeli forces killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 150 others as they awaited delivery of humanitarian aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City. The previous day, a UNRWA staffer was among five people killed and more than 20 wounded in an attack on a food distribution center in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. Israeli officials claimed the slain man was a Hamas commander.
According to UNRWA, at least 165 of the agency’s staff members have been killed since October 7. Over 150 UNRWA facilities have been attacked by Israeli forces, while more than 400 Palestinians have been slain while seeking shelter under the United Nations flag.
UNRWA also says its workers have been tortured by Israeli troops trying to force them to falsely confess to participating in the October 7 attacks.
Gaza officials said earlier this week that at least 400 Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid have been killed by Israeli forces since the February 29 “Flour Massacre,” in which at least 118 people were killed and more than 760 others wounded while waiting for an aid convoy in Gaza City.
More than 112,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Gaza since October 7, including people missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the strip’s hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. The majority of the dead are women and children. Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Disease and starvation are rampant, and a growing number of Palestinians—mostly children but also elders and other vulnerable people—are starving to death.
After 161 days of near-constant slaughter, there is still no cease-fire in sight.
The motion in parliament, which was supported by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has called for the return of imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to his family in Australia. Assange is days away from a final court hearing in the UK against his extradition to the US.
On February 14, lawmakers in Australia’s parliament voted 86-42 in support of a motion calling on the UK and the US to return arbitrarily imprisoned WikiLeaks founder and journalist, Julian Assange, to his home and family in Australia.
The move, which was also supported by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, came just days before the High Court of Justice in London will decide if Assange can continue to contest his extradition to the US through the UK’s legal system.
The US has indicted Assange on 18 charges, 17 of which are under the notorious Espionage Act, in relation to the publication of confidential documents on WikiLeaks that exposed the war crimes and atrocities committed by US forces during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. If convicted, Assange would face up to 175 years in a maximum security prison.
The 52-year-old journalist has already been held at the UK’s high security Belmarsh prison for nearly five years, without charge or conviction, amid serious concerns over his mental and physical health.
“Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.” Nils Melzer, the former UN Special Rapporteur on torture, had said of the journalist’s condition back in 2019.
Addressing a press conference on February 15, Assange’s partner, Stella, stated that his “life is at risk every single day he stays in prison– and if he is extradited he will die”, warning that Assange could be “on a plane within days”.
The public hearings on February 20 and 21 will mark the culmination of a protracted legal battle for Assange. A two-judge bench of the High Court will review a June 6, 2023 decision by Justice Jonathan Swift, in which he had rejected all eight grounds of appeal filed by Assange’s legal team.
If approved, the appeal will challenge the extradition order approved by the UK Home Office in June 2022.
On Wednesday, independent lawmaker Andrew Wilkie introduced a motion in the Australian parliament, calling on the US and the UK to bring “the matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia”.
“This will be the time for all of us to take a stand, to stand up and to take a stand, and to stand with Julian Assange, stand for the principles of justice, stand for the principles of media freedom and the rights of journalists to do their job…This has gone on too long, that it must be brought to an end.”
Commenting directly on the matter in Parliament on February 15, PM Albanese stated that there was a “common view” that “enough is enough”. “People will have a range of views about Mr. Assange’s conduct… but regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on indefinitely.”
He went on to state, “I hope it can be resolved amicably. It’s not up to Australia to interfere in the legal processes of other countries, but it is appropriate for us to put our very strong view that those countries need to take into account the need for this to be concluded.”
The Prime Minister’s ambiguous statements throughout the legal proceedings, including a refusal to outrightly call for a withdrawal of the extradition order, has been criticized by progressive, anti-imperialist forces, with the late renowned journalist John Pilger having called it a “betrayal” in March 2023.
Addressing reporters outside Parliament House on Thursday, Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, warned that his extradition would mean that “all the ties to his family, his lifeline that are keeping him alive inside that prison will be cut off and he’ll be lost into a horrific prison system in the United States”.
He added that the vote in parliament had given the Australian government a “real mandate to advocate very, very strongly for a political solution” to bring Assange home.
“It’s not just about being extradited. Julian should never have been put in prison in the first place,” Stella Assange implored on Thursday, as journalists and activists across the world have warned of the impact Assange’s case could have on the press.
“We are seeing a critical attack on press freedom worldwide. It is like a disease, an anti-press pandemic, creeping up on us that has been incrementally taking shape over the years”, said WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, adding that Assange had been the “canary in the gold mine”.
Assurances about conditions in US prison are “dubious”, say advocates
This was reiterated by over 35 law professors in the US in a letter sent to the Department of Justice on February 14, stating that Assange’s prosecution posed an “existential threat” to the freedom of speech and press enshrined under the First Amendment.
These “constitutional implications” could “extend beyond the Espionage Act and beyond national security journalism [to] enable prosecution of routine newsgathering under any number of ambiguous laws and untested legal theories.”
Assange’s extradition to the US was approved on the basis of supposed “assurances” given by the US regarding his safety, including the avoidance of what are called “special administrative measures” (SAMs) — a horrific punitive measure that combines “the brutality and isolation of maximum-security units with additional restrictions that deny individuals almost any connection to the human world”.
However, human rights organizations and observers had immediately warned that these “assurances” were unreliable and could be arbitrarily revoked.
“The US assurances cannot be trusted. Dubious assurances that he will be treated well in a US prison ring hollow considering that Assange potentially faces dozens of years of incarceration in a system well known for its abuses, including prolonged solitary confinement and poor health services for inmates,” stated Julia Hall, the international expert on counter-terrorism and criminal justice in Europe at Amnesty International.
If the High Court of Justice in London does not rule in favor of Julian Assange next week, Stella Assange has stated that he will then approach the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), seeking urgent measures to halt his extradition under Rule 39— granted when there is an “imminent risk of irreparable harm” — pending a full consideration of his case.
The present UN Special Rapporteur Dr. Alice Edwards, has also pointed out that outside of the legal process, the ultimate decision to actually proceed with the extradition will lie with the US Secretary of State. Antony Blinken, for his part, had rebuffed calls by the Australian government last year to drop the prosecution.
“The UK is a party to the UN convention against torture as well as the European convention on human rights, both of them have Article 3 which prohibits states from sending people to where they may face this type of treatment [torture],” Edwards said.
