Warming Climate Linked to Reef Destruction

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, December 6, 2004 (ENS) - Twenty percent of the world's coral reefs are so damaged that they are unlikely to recover, while another 50 percent could collapse, warns the 2004 edition of "Status of Coral Reefs of the World." Released today as delegates gather here for the annual conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, the report says global warming is the single greatest threat to corals.

The report is based on the findings of 240 experts from 96 countries that participate in the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. As climate change warms the sea and makes it more acid, the scientists predict massive bleaching events, such as the one which damaged or destroyed 16 percent of the world's coral reefs in 1998, will be a regular occurrence within 50 years.

Bleached coral on Australia's Great Barrier Reef (Photo courtesy Australian Institute of Marine Science)

Corals are animals that are usually colored tan, green or blue due to the presence of millions of microscopic plant cells within their tissues. Bleaching happens when warmer waters cause corals to eject those plant cells, killing or weakening the reefs.

Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolved in sea water make it more acid, which slows the building of coral skeletons, a process called calcification.

Coral experts say that calcification is likely to be reduced by up to 40 percent in corals when there is a doubling of CO2 emissions, which is predicted to happen by the middle of this century.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas linked to global warming. Emitted by the burning of coal, oil and gas, it has been building up in the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution, trapping the Sun's heat close to the planet, warming the land and sea.

At the Buenos Aires conference, some 5,000 participants from the Convention’s 189 Parties as well as from nongovernmental organizations and intergovernmental organizations will review progress under the Convention, develop a framework for international cooperation on adapting to the negative impacts of climate change, and address how to support developing countries as they adapt to a warming world.

The reefs the most at risk of severe future degradation are in East Africa, South, South-East, and East Asia, and throughout the Caribbean, according to "Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2004."

Bleached brain coral in the Florida Keys (Photo courtesy U.S. Geological Survey, Center for Coastal Geology)

"To save coral reefs, governments must reduce CO2 emissions quickly, but also create marine protected areas to help ensure that corals are protected from all threats," said Dr. Simon Cripps, director of WWF's Global Marine Programme. "Coral reefs are worth more than US$30 billion annually, we can't afford to lose their social and economic value because of climate change or any other threat." WWF is one of the 20 organizations that published the report.

It is estimated that reefs provide seafood for one billion people in Asia alone, many of them from poor communities. Fishing and tourism centered about reefs provide economic livelihoods for millions of others.

Offering some hope for the future of reefs worldwide, the report shows that reefs that have recently been protected are improving.

IUCN - The World Conservation Union, which reviewed the report at its Congress in November, says coral reefs have continued to recover after the 1998 El Nino global coral bleaching event, with strong and healthy recovery in well managed and remote reefs.

But the recovery is not uniform, and the IUCN says that many reefs virtually destroyed in 1998 are showing minimal signs of recovery.

In south Asia, over 60 percent of the reefs were killed during the 1998 mass bleaching. Today, almost half of the reefs remain dead.

Small Island Developing States in all oceans remain particularly vulnerable to climate change due to the critical importance of coral reefs and reef resources in providing livelihoods, food and economic sustenance, the IUCN said.

Still, the reefs that are recovering should continue to improve, provided that there are no major climate shifts in the next few decades, IUCN officials said.

Carl Gustaf Lundin is head of the IUCN Global Marine Programme. (Photo courtesy IUCN)

Some governments are taking steps to protect their coral reefs. Australia and the United States last week signed an agreement to promote coral reef resilience through shared science and coastal management. Signed Thursday at the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force meeting in Miami, the agreement allows marine sanctuary scientists from Australia and the Florida Keys to share information about the natural ability of corals to survive and recover from environmental stresses like pollution, hurricanes, disease and bleaching.

Coral reefs make up less than two-tenths of one percent of the ocean floor but provide habitat for more than 25 percent of all marine life, the Coral Reef Task Force says.

Director of WWF's Climate Change Programme Jennifer Morgan at the Conference of Parties in Milan, Italy, December 2003. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin)

"We know that going beyond that mark would for instance wipe out coral reefs in many parts of the world," said Morgan.

Humans are just beginning to discover the immense variety of coral reef species. Some 100,000 species have been described to date, but the IUCN says experts have barely begun to catalogue them and some scientists estimate that there could be more than two million reef species.

Reefs protect coastlines from erosion, provide a home for many economically important marine species, and form an important link in cycling nutrients from land to the open ocean.

Preparing for the Kyoto Protocol

A central focus of negotiations at the Conference of Parties will be the Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the UN Convention on Climate Change. Russia's ratification in November means that the protocol will become legally binding on its 129 Parties on February 16, 2005.

While the protocol limits the emission of six greenhouse gases during the five years from 2008 through 2012, scientists have said the limits required under the protocol will do little to curb global warming. The goal is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 5.2 percent of 1990 emissions.

The European Union and other countries have said they want to begin talking about ways of addressing climate change after 2012. The protocol mandates those discussions in 2005, so setting the stage for those talks is likely to be part of the Buenos Aires negotiations.

But the United States, which is not a Party to the protocol, is dragging its heels on this issue.

U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson is co-leader of the U.S. delegation to Buenos Aires. He is pictured here at the 2003 Conference of Parties in Milan, Italy. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin)

The United States chose not to be a party to the Kyoto Protocol, Watson said, because "the terms that the previous administration had agreed to would require the United States reduce its emissions by approximately 30 percent, and there's no way the United States could have done that without severely impacting the economy."

But according to the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United States would have been required cut its emissions from 1990 levels by seven, not 30, percent. Under President Bill Clinton, the United States signed the Kyoto Protocol, but President George W. Bush pulled U.S. support from the agreement early in 2001.

President Bush said the binding emissions limits would harm the U.S. economy, and expressed concern over the lack of limits on the emissions of large developing countries such as China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, which also emit greenhouse gases.

Limits on developing countries' emissions may be required after 2012, but the day the protocol becomes legally binding, these countries will begin to participate in the process by means of the Clean Development Mechanism, one of the flexible mechanisms that the protocol allows to compensate for its legally binding targets.

Joke Waller-Hunter of The Netherlands is executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin)

The project, located in the state of Rio de Janeiro, will capture methane from the landfill to use for generating electricity. It will have direct health and environmental benefits for the local community of Nova Igacú.

The project involves S.A. Paulista, EcoSecurities and the World Bank Netherlands Clean Development Facility. It was validated by DNV Certification UK, one of the companies accredited by the CDM Executive Board. It is expected to reduce about 31,000 metric tons of methane per year which, in terms of global warming potential, is equivalent to a reduction of 670,000 tons of CO2.

This project is potentially a model for similar projects in other parts of Brazil and the world.

While Australia has not ratified the protocol, the government of Prime Minister John Howard is keeping pace with the target Australia would have had if it had ratified.

Australia is committed to meeting its internationally agreed target constraining emissions in 2008-12 to 108 percent of their 1990 level, Environment Minister Senator Ian Campbell said today.

Australian Environment Minister Senator Ian Campbell (Photo courtesy Office of the Minister)

"This represents a tremendous effort by governments, industry and the Australian community," Campbell said. "The Australian Government is investing around $1.8 billion in climate change measures."

Australian federal and state environment ministers Friday agreed to prepare the mechanisms to include greenhouse gas emissions on the National Pollutant Inventory (NPI).

"This is another step toward the inclusion of greenhouse gases in the NPI," said Victoria Environment Minister John Thwaites. “We are already feeling the impact of climate change and we need a system that requires industry and government to report and disclose their emissions – and this is an easy and efficient way for industry to do this."

The Kyoto Protocol’s international carbon trading market will begin in the European Union on January 1, 2005. And under another of the protocol's flexible mechanisms - Joint Implementation - an industralized country governed by the protocol invests in emission reduction in other countries with emissions targets and thus earns emission reduction units which can be accredited on the national emissions target.

More than 100 side events and 60 exhibits in Buenos Aires will highlight activities undertaken at international, national and local levels by international organizations, private entities, research institutions and nongovernmental organizations.