Reef – or grief?

August 14, 2025

As the government’s 2035 emissions reduction target looms, Imogen Zethoven nominates the Great Barrier Reef as its litmus test.

With global warming at 1.5 degrees for 2024, ocean temperatures have become an existential threat to coral. The Reef may recover if action is taken urgently to reduce or remove its threats within the next few years, as outlined by the International Coral Reef Initiative. Underpinning this protection must be a substantial reduction of fossil fuel use, and the establishment of an independent authority overseeing legally enforceable national environmental standards.

If we — and many others — can take the urgent, major steps needed to stifle the fossil fuel sector’s demands for more and bigger projects then we might start towards lowering global temperatures quickly enough to save our reefs.

As Nick O’Malley observes: “Australia is almost uniquely vulnerable to climate change, and has more to gain than most nations by helping to accelerate the global decarbonisation effort rather than abandoning it.” If we set an ambitious, science-based 2035 target, and commit to its attainment, our coral could revive. If we fail, the coral will die, and a lifeless Barrier Reef would become the harbinger of a hothouse Earth.