Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Australia has been repeated accused over the last few weeks, of successfully lobbying UNESCO to drop mention of the Great Barrier Reef from a climate report. My question – if a relatively minor world player like Australia can manipulate the content of a UNESCO climate report, what does this say about the scientific integrity of other UN bureaucracies, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
Every reference to Australia was scrubbed from the final version of a major UN report on climate change after the Australian government intervened, objecting that the information could harm tourism.
Guardian Australia can reveal the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate”, which Unesco jointly published with the United Nations environment program and the Union of Concerned Scientists on Friday, initially had a key chapter on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as small sections on Kakadu and the Tasmanian forests.
But when the Australian Department of Environment saw a draft of the report, it objected, and every mention of Australia was removed by Unesco. Will Steffen, one of the scientific reviewers of the axed section on the reef, said Australia’s move was reminiscent of “the old Soviet Union”.
No sections about any other country were removed from the report. The removals left Australia as the only inhabited continent on the planet with no mentions.
The Guardian provides a link to a chapter which they claim was removed from the final report, thanks to Australia’s political manoeuvring;
Climate change is the primary long-term threat to the integrity and biodiversity of the world’s most extensive coral reef ecosystem. The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) was added to the world heritage list in 1981. It is one of the world’s most complex and diverse ecosystems, with at least 400 species of hard coral, 150 species of soft corals and sea fans, and more than 2,900 individual reefs and some of the most important seagrass meadows in the world – teeming with marine life of all sorts, including more than 1,600 fish species, seabirds, seahorses, whales, dolphins, crocodiles, dugongs and endangered green turtles. The GBR extends for 2,300km along the coast of Queensland in Northeast Australia and has evolved over a period of 15,000 years (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority 2012, Unesco). The GBR region is important for the indigenous heritage of First Australians – Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander people – who are the traditional wners. Climate change threatens hunting and fishing as well as other traditional and cultural practices. Some sacred sites are also at risk for the more than 70 traditional owner groups for whom natural resources are inseparable from cultural identity (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority 2012).
Click here to see the official report. I haven’t read the full report, but just glancing through provided some interesting highlights. The Union of Concerned Scientists features in the list of credits. The Great Barrier Reef gets a mention on page 89, in the references, but as far as I can tell it is not mentioned elsewhere, which in my opinion supports the assertion of a hasty removal of censored material from the report.
The following is a statement by the Australian Environment Department, about their contact with UNESCO regarding this report;
The World Heritage Centre initiated contact with the Department of the Environment in early 2016 for our views on aspects of this report.
The department expressed concern that giving the report the title ‘Destinations at risk’ had the potential to cause considerable confusion. In particular, the world heritage committee had only six months earlier decided not to include the Great Barrier Reef on the in-danger list and commended Australia for the Reef 2050 Plan.
The department was concerned that the framing of the report confused two issues – the world heritage status of the sites and risks arising from climate change and tourism. It is the world heritage committee, not its secretariat (the World Heritage Centre), which is properly charged with examining the status of world heritage sites.
Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism.
The department indicated it did not support any of Australia’s world heritage properties being included in such a publication for the reasons outlined above.
The Department of the Environment conveyed these concerns through Australia’s ambassador to UNESCO.
The department did not brief the minister on this issue.
Read more: Same as the first link
Regardless of whether you agree with the contents of the report, to me the far more damaging revelation is how easy it is for governments to manipulate UN climate processes – how susceptible the content of allegedly scientific UN Climate reports is to “political” input.
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ms also wrote:
ms: “I also was cnsored in reply”
I was sorry to hear that. I was looking forward to it. It must have been one heck of a rant. I posted this message three times and it never showed up. so I’m posting it in parts to see if that gets around the problem.
ms: “so you don’t know that my Uncle was on the planning staff of the war and I know what happened. No need to read some academic’s book.”
Having an uncle on the planning staff doesn’t guarantee you understand the war, and you *don’t* understand the war. I can tell by the way you talk about it. Having an uncle on the staff didn’t do you any good. You should read the book. BTW, I served two tours in Vietnam: 1968 and 1969. I don’t need a book, except to quote from.
ms: Leftist? Oh boy are you wrong. I am a Rothbardian radical libertarian.
Well, I said I wasn’t sure. I’ve seen anti-war types of all political persuasions, but most of them are on the radical left. Same mindset though.
ms: “I am as anti-war as the “Old Right” of the Republican party that saw defense of our own lands as the only justifiable use of war.”
Yeah, that’t the way I look at it, too. Fighting in South Vietnam was defending my land from communist aggression, IMO.
ms: “It is obvious you are a w@rm0nger who does not care a bit about the innocent.”
Obvious to you, I guess. I actually prefer peace instead of war, but being realistic, I know that is not possible. There are bullies out in the world who will kill us if we don’t do something about it first. Your alternative to opposing them is?
ms: “You would have been a good aid to Sherman as he brought total warfare to the modern world for the first time.”
Getting a little carried away, arent’ you?
ms: “May you get what you so richly deserve.”
That’s what I’m hoping.
ms also wrote:
s: “I also was [prevented from replying] in reply”
I was sorry to hear that. I was looking forward to it. It must have been one heck of a rant. I’m having a rather hard time getting this entire post posted myself for some reason. Been trying for two days.
ms: “so you don’t know that my Uncle was on the planning staff of the war and I know what happened. No need to read some academic’s book.”
Having an uncle on the planning staff doesn’t guarantee you understand the war, and you *don’t* understand the war. I can tell by the way you talk about it. Having an uncle on the staff didn’t do you any good. You should read the book. BTW, I served two tours in Vietnam: 1968 and 1969.
ms also wrote:
ms: “I also was [prevented from replying]
I was sorry to hear that. I was looking forward to it. It must have been one heck of a rant.
ms: “so you don’t know that my Uncle was on the planning staff of the war and I know what happened. No need to read some academic’s book.”
Having an uncle on the planning staff doesn’t guarantee you understand the war, and you *don’t* understand the war. I can tell by the way you talk about it. Having an uncle on the staff didn’t do you any good. You should read the book. BTW, I served two tours in Vietnam: 1968 and 1969.
more from ms:
ms: Leftist? Oh boy are you wrong. I am a Rothbardian radical libertarian.
Well, I said I wasn’t sure. I’ve seen anti-war types of all political persuasions, but most of them are on the radical left. Same mindset though.
ms: “I am as anti-war as the “Old Right” of the Republican party that saw defense of our own lands as the only justifiable use of war.”
Yeah, that’t the way I look at it, too. Fighting in South Vietnam was defending my land from communist aggression, IMO.
ms: “It is obvious you are a warmonger who does not care a bit about the innocent.”
Obvious to you, I guess. I actually prefer peace instead of war, but being realistic, I know that is not possible. There are bullies out in the world who will kill us if we don’t do something about it first. Your alternative to opposing them is?
ms: “You would have been a good aid to Sherman as he brought total warfare to the modern world for the first time.”
Getting a little carried away, arent’ you?
ms: “May you get what you so richly deserve.”
That’s what I’m hoping.
Well, it looks like I finally got the first and last part of my post posted. Now if I can just figure out why the middle part of the post wont’ post, I’ll favor you with that part, too, Mark
[Nothing in the “Spam” folder, nothing in the “Pending Review” folder. .mod]
middle part part 1:
ms: “I also was [prevented from replying]”
I was sorry to hear that. I was looking forward to it. It must have been one heck of a rant.
ms: “so you don’t know that my Uncle was on the planning staff of the war and I know what happened. No need to read some academic’s book.”
middle part 2
my answer to ms: Having an uncle on the planning staff doesn’t guarantee you understand the war, and you *don’t* understand the war. I can tell by the way you talk about it. Having an uncle on the staff didn’t help your understanding. You should read the book. BTW, I served two tours in Vietnam: 1968 and 1969. I don’t need to read a book.
Well, part 2 still won’t post. Don’t know why.
Mark, you really do need to read the book. Your uncle didn’t give you a very good understandig of the war. I spent two years there in 1968 and 1969. You need to read the book.
[Nothing in the “Spam” folder, nothing in the “Pending Review” folder. .mod]
Mods, I have tried to post this one single message twice last night and once this morning, and nothing.
So I tried modifying the post to take out possible trigger words to see if it would take but that didn’t work, so I decided to break it down into smaller parts, to see if there was a particular problem I could spot. Something in the middle part of my post must be triggering something. There are no trigger words in that part as far as I can tell. No problem, I have pretty much said what I wanted to say now.
Strange. But computers do such things sometimes, don’t they. 🙂