The Great Barrier Reef and
Climate Change
Based on a report by Hans and Ove
Hoegh-Guldberg,
with tentative notes on implications for
Florida Keys study
This presentation
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GBR report: background and structure
Scientific analysis: general and GBR
Regional economic analysis
Social and environmental connotations
The future
Policy implications
General approach applicable to Florida?
Some initial thoughts
2002 Background: General
• Mounting agreement on climate
change
• Coral reefs are the global
canaries of the 21st Century
• IPCC reports 2000-01 unanimously backed
by participating scientists
• ‘Townsville Declaration’ October 2002
relating to Great Barrier Reef
• Suggested remedies ranging from global to
local.
The
Vostok
ice core
CO2
data
and
current
CO2
levels
GBR specific concerns
• Combined impact of:
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Climate change
Overfishing
Coastal pollution
Tourism.
Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) aware
and managing problems
• Concerns successfully articulated by WWF
Queensland and backed by Queensland
Tourism Industry Council.
Initial responses to proposal
• GBRMPA and Queensland Government
favourable
• Favourable response and backing from
Queensland Tourism Industry Council
• Initial backing from commercial fisheries
interests subsequently withdrawn
• (Coinciding with GBRMPA work towards
greatly increased no-catch area)
• Funded by several Federal and Queensland
government departments
Selection of authors
• Previous cooperation between Ove and Hans
on 2000 Pacific in Peril study for Greenpeace
• Greenpeace wanted economic impact analysed
following a previous scientific report by Ove.
Hans added scenario planning to the approach
• WWF GBR campaign manager Imogen
Zethoven wanted similar approach, with due
emphasis on socio-economic side.
• This provided an opportunity to refine the
combined science/ economics/scenarioplanning approach for the GBR study
GBR study objectives
• Reasonably straightforward:
• To present scientific evidence, socioeconomic evidence and future implications
• Leading to policy implications and
recommendations ranging from global to
local.
• Peer-reviewed 350-page report published
in early 2004.
In summary, the GBR study was:
• A cooperation between coral reef scientist Ove
Hoegh-Guldberg and cultural and ecological
economist Hans Hoegh-Guldberg
• Main initiative from WWF Australia, which
obtained government funding of project
• Ove and Hans previously cooperated on a
Greenpeace study of Pacific Island nations
• Both studies combined scientific evidence and
socio-economic analysis; scenario-planning
analysis of possible futures was introduced in
Pacific study and refined in GBR study.
Four parts of GBR Study
• Part 1: The scientific evidence (Ove)
• Part 2: Regional analysis (economic, social,
ecological – Hans)
• Part 3: The future (Hans with a healthy dash
of Ove, especially on GBR fisheries)
• Part 4: Policy recommendations (both)
• Structure should work for Florida study,
suggest testing through scoping phase
Scientific evidence – general
• Global warming intensifying in 21st Century
• Biological systems already responding to
minimal warming to date (0.6-0.8oC)
• Coral reefs early indicator of climate change
as thermal thresholds have been increasingly
exceeded since 1979
• Exacerbated by coastal land
practices, overfishing and marine
pollution potentially causing
removal of 50% of world’s reefs
over next 30-50 years.
GBR specifics
• Well-managed reef ecosystem but
threatened by coastal land and fisheries
practices (which government is acting upon)
• Expected temperature change 21st Century
2-6oC
• Coral not sufficiently adaptive and can’t
exchange larvae over hundreds of miles
• Thermal stress of 5 degree heating months
would remove majority of coral
• Likely to be reached on annual basis by 2050
• Coral cover <5% by 2050, replaced by
macroalgae and cyanobacteria.
Some main economic impacts
• Reef-based tourism through changing
environmental quality
• Commercial fisheries through changing fish
community structure and abundance
• Recreational fishing (treasured social activity)
• Subsistence gathering (significant Indigenous
population, especially in Far North region)
• Bio-prospecting (also threatened in adjacent
Daintree National Park)
• Coastal protection requirements.
Principles of regional analysis
• Part 2 of report
• Focus on all elements, not just economic
• Bridge to scenario planning (Part 3) which is
based on all factors whether or not statistical
• Factors may be Socio/cultural, Technological,
Ecological, Economic and Political (‘STEEP’)
• Economic theory is evolving (in secret
apparently) to encompass the long term
• Practice, such as national accounting and
valuation techniques, lagging behind theory
• Sustainability, resilience and attempting to
‘value the invaluable’ (ecosystems)
Economic and demographic data
• Five regions along GBR from Far North around
Cairns to Wide Bay-Burnett in south
• Total population just over 1 million (2004)
• 26% of Queensland population
• Regional GDP data, official and other industry
statistics on main reef-dependent industries
(tourism and fisheries)
• Useful research (mainly James Cook
University, CRC Reef)
• Tourism by far the dominant industry (Far
North especially), but fisheries, including
recreational, has big ‘social’ significance
The value of tourism
• Tourism is dominant ‘reef-dependent’ industry
(but its adaptability is well-known)
• Directly contributes 7% to GDP and 10% to
employment along GBR (+ multiplier effects)
• 14% to GDP in Far North region
• Major node of tourism (especially international)
around Cairns and Port Douglas
• Minor node Whitsunday Islands
• Estimated reef-interested tourism spending
64% of total tourism spending in GBR regions
• Varying from 90% in Far North and 72% in
Whitsundays to 23% in Wide Bay-Burnett
Total and
reefinterested
tourism
spending.
GBR
regions
Social indicators
• Not well developed from official indicators,
and nothing specific from GBRMPA
• Australian Bureau of Statistics Index of Social
Disadvantage shows these regions slightly
worse off than Australian average
• More apparent than real as lifestyle factors
not well covered in index, and some like
percentage of older people and Indigenous
population may exaggerate ‘disadvantage’
• Localities with high tourism better off and
Wide Bay-Burnett worse off – probably real.
Environmental factors
• Coastal management crucial issue: runoff
from grazing, pesticides and herbicides,
especially from sugar cane (Cairns,
Whitsunday coast, Mackay, Wide BayBurnett)
• Fisheries
• Tourism
• Potential mining activities (there is oil)
• Shipping accidents waiting to happen
• Encapsulated in Townsville Declaration
Townsville Declaration 2002
• 17 leading Australian and international
scientists meeting in Townsville, Queensland
• Global warming will accelerate
• In excess of coral survival threshold
• Increase resilience by curbing overfishing and
pollution (subsequent GBRMPA rezoning to
33% no-take areas)
• Coral reefs (global canary)
already affected by climate
change
• Clear need to reduce rate
of global warming
Scenario planning (Part 3)
• A strategic tool designed to cope with
unpredictability
• Selecting a range of plausible futures
• Scenarios are stories about the future,
which can then be supplemented with
numerical projections
• They incorporate all ‘STEEP’ factors:
socio-cultural, technological, ecological,
economic and political
Our scenarios
were derived
from the four
main SRES
2000 ‘marker’
scenarios
The four SRES 2000
scenarios
GBR report versions of scenarios
• A1: Full speed ahead as far as possible
(economic – global)
• A2: Heterogeneous regionalisation
(economic – regional)
• B1: Global policy reform (environmental –
global)
• B2: Regional sustainability (environmental
– regional)
Quantitative
SRES scenarios
to 2100: A1 (three
variants), A2, B1
and B2
Summarised on next slide
Summary of SRES assumptions
• Population: A2  $15B by 2100, B2  $10B
(too high?), A1, B1 peaks at <$9B mid-century,
reducing to $7B
• GDP: A1 implausibly high, A2 high, B1 high, A2
and B2 lower (B2 too low?)
• GDP per head: Ditto; very low B2 (too low?)
• CO2 emissions: A2: Rising to 4x current level,
A1 marker peaks mid-century then reduces to
2x current level by 2100, B1 peaks before midcentury then reduces to current level by 2080;
B2 rises throughout to 2x current level
SRES strengths
• Direct link to climate change models
• Most stories are plausible
• Stories linked to numerical projections of CO2
emissions, population growth and GDP
• Can check for internal consistency and sense
• Can be extended to individual countries and
regions as in GBR report
SRES weaknesses
• Regional base demographics need improving
• Lumping Japan with Australia/NZ (‘Pacific
OECD’) is not a good projection base
• A1 in particular suffers from chosen assumption
of developing country ‘catch-up’
• Exchange rate based comparison exaggerates
poor and rich country difference (World Bank
uses purchasing power parity (PPP))
• Gap between GDP and GDP per head in the
two environmental marker scenarios may be
too big (population forecast B2 too high?)
SRES modified for GBR report
• A1 fading into B1 from mid-century to lessen
implausible A1 growth 2050-2100
• B2 fading into B1 from mid-century, as strong
local community concern for ecology (B2)
becomes generally accepted (global B1)
• Many ideas derived from scenario planning
workshops (Port Douglas, Townsville and
Brisbane)
• We will be less hesitant making changes to
main scenario source in future!
Scenario construction
Successive narratives for world (developed from SRES 2000),
Australia, Queensland and Great Barrier Reef (with input from
scenario planning workshops), followed by narratives for …….
Projected regional
reductions from base,
2010, 2020: tourism,
fisheries, regional
multiplier, Gross
Regional Product (GRP)
Base projections
(Productivity Commission
Report on GBR
catchment 2003)
Impact on
Queensland
coastal
regions
Domestic and
international
tourism, total
and reef
Benthic & pelagic
fisheries, trawling,
aquaculture;
recreational fishing
Estimated
regional
industry loss
to 2020, four
scenarios;
differences
due to
intensify in
subsequent
years
Implications for Florida
• General approach has been tested
• Elements (scientific input; socio-economic input;
future implications using alternative scenarios)
seem logical
• The first two could be undertaken simultaneously
or in tandem; both need to precede futures study
Tentative issues for scoping study
• Socio-economic data and investigations available now
• Coordinate with planned 2005-06 NOAA importancesatisfaction Keys surveys
• Identification of reef-dependent industries (tourism,
fisheries, other?)
• Tourism industry structure in different Keys sectors
• Which region or regions are affected? (Apart from
Monroe County, Broward and Miami-Dade?)
• Need for a ‘feel’ for possible futures of reef deterioration
• Build-up of a view of total study (outcome of scoping
study but inputs needed from outset)
Presented by Hans Hoegh-Guldberg, co-author with Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of
The Implications of Climate Change for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef,
www.wwf.org.au/News_and_information/News_room/viewnews.php?news_id=65
Bleaching of inner GBR reefs, 1998
© GBR Marine Park Authority