BAMOS August 2025
10 Article
Excerpt from The Hon. Matt Kean ' s speech at AMOS 2025
June 20th marked the fiftieth anniversary of two wildly different marine-related events.
One was the release of the Jaws movie. Its plot and catchline—“ Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water”— arguably set back global marine conservation more than any other cultural phenomenon.
The date also marked 50 years since the start of one of Australia’ s biggest marine conservation efforts: the creation of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The Park Authority was itself the world’ s first statutory body dedicated to conserving and caring for a coral reef system.
But if the threats to the Great Barrier Reef and corals everywhere were set to a musical score, it might well resemble those ominous tones of Jaws.
In the past decade, there have been six years when the Reef has been hit by mass coral bleaching. Last summer marked only the second time it had been hit by widespread bleaching over consecutive years.
Out west, the Ningaloo Reef also bleached, the first time mass events have been reported in sync in the Indian and Pacific ocean regions off Australia.
The Climate Change Authority will soon release a report examining the threats and outlook of the Great Barrier Reef. The report’ s findings won’ t surprise many here. But they are stark, nonetheless.
Without near-term, coordinated international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the window to avoid broadscale loss the Great Barrier Reef’ s ecosystems is closing.
Should global warming settle at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for an extended spell, 70 to 90 percent of the Great Barrier Reef is forecast by scientists to decline. At 2 degrees warming, as much as 99 percent of corals may be lost or fundamentally altered, our report will find.
The Paris Climate agreement, you’ ll recall, specified warming should be kept to as close as 1.5 degrees, and not more than 2 degrees. Putting it another way, traditional owners, tourists, fishers, and scientists alike— all they may be left with is a vestige of today’ s Great Barrier Reef.
That’ s if we don’ t act with urgency to reduce emissions now. From an economic perspective alone, thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of activity are in peril.
And that’ s if global warming can be restrained to 2 degrees. The Government’ s upcoming National Climate Risk Assessment— part of which has already been made public— considers scenarios of as much as 3 degrees warming.
International promises to cut carbon emissions have us on track to 2.8 degrees, and that’ s if commitments are acted on. With the carbon the world is presently emitting, we are on course to smash past that level.
In simplest terms, when reef waters get too warm, corals get stressed. They expel the algae that gives them their iridescent brilliance, and much of their energy. Disease and death can follow.
Sadly, the science that’ s revealing nature’ s secrets and their implications for our climate and weather is itself under threat with the Trump administration threatening to slash funding for services from coral reef monitoring to satellite observations.
The potential disruption must serve as a call to arms for sustained support for science, here and elsewhere.
Indeed, the role of science will only grow in importance. We’ re going to need AMOS members’ smarts when it comes to climate adaptation, given the scale and wide range of possible outcomes.
Knowledge-sharing is going to be important, too, but we must strive to generate new knowledge to share. Better policy needs better science.
Decision-makers— in government, business and the investment community— will need clear and unambiguous information about the real and growing risks we face in a changing climate.
I was inspired by the glories of the Reef in my youth, and I fervently want my children, including my three-week-old daughter Zoe, to experience the same wonder and joy I had.
We can’ t let the Reef or other treasures of nature wither from our neglect. Science at its best delivered medical advances miraculous to our ancestors, put a Man on the Moon and figured out how to harness our sunshine.
Love for our planet is one renewable source of hope, but another is your talent and determination. We’ re going to need both in abundance!
Editor ' s note: The original speech is available here.