Frantic efforts to avoid adverse status for reef which could foil government plans to open up vast region in Queensland for new coal mines

The Australian government is undertaking frantic diplomatic efforts to avoid the Great Barrier Reef being listed as “in danger” by the UN, amid rising international concern over the opening up of a vast region in the state of Queensland for gigantic new coal mines.

A draft decision on the reef’s status is expected to be delivered by the end of this month ahead of a meeting of Unesco’s world heritage committee in Bonn, Germany in June. Unesco has already expressed its concern over erosion of the reef, which has lost 50% of its coral cover over the past 30 years.

It has emerged that Australian ministers and diplomats have visited 19 countries that provide committee members, including Portugal, Japan and Jamaica, in recent months in a desperate lobbying effort to avert an internationally embarrassing blacklisting for the ailing reef.

Australia: The new coal frontier Read more

An “in danger” listing for the huge marine ecosystem, the world’s largest living entity, would prove highly problematic to mining companies attempting to open a massive fossil fuel frontier in Queensland’s Galilee basin, an area of underground coal the size of Britain.

Critics insist the Galilee basin projects would devastate global attempts to stay within a carbon ‘budget’ to avoid runaway climate change.

Scientists and green groups, as well as figures ranging from US president Barack Obama to Hollywood actor Leonardo di Caprio and businessman Richard Branson, have voiced concern over the threat posed by climate change to the reef.

Environmentalists also point out that the planned expansion of Abbot Point port on the Queensland coast to deal with the millions of tonnes of coal exports and the thousands of extra container ship journeys along narrow lanes will put pressure on the reef too.

Most major financial institutions are signed up to the Equator Principles, a set of standards that deter the funding of projects that harm world heritage sites.

Australia’s government and mining industry hopes that the reef will avoid an “in danger” listing, so providing confidence to lenders concerned about damaging their environmental credentials by investing in the Galilee basin mines. At least 11 international banks, including Barclays and HSBC, have already distanced themselves from financing the projects.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Coal development in the Bowen basin just east of the Galilee basin. The area is under threat from coal mining and in particular the loss of the Bimblebox nature reserve – home to the endangered black-throated finch. Photograph: Tom Jefferson/Greenpeace

Earlier this month, London-listed bank Standard Chartered vowed to review its role advising the Indian company Adani on the Carmichael mine, the first and largest of the Galilee basin development. The project, which is due to begin extracting coal in 2017, is set to become one of the world’s largest coal developments.

The Carmichael mine would, at capacity, dig up 60m tonnes of thermal coal for export via the expanded Abbot Point port, which lies adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. The coal will be shipped via the reef to countries such as India, with the resulting annual carbon dioxide emissions, at 130m tonnes, the equivalent to roughly what Sweden and New Zealand currently muster, combined, in a year.

It is just the first of up to nine mines planned for the Galilee basin. At capacity, greenhouse gas emissions from the burned coal could top 700m tonnes a year. If it were a country, the Galilee basin would be the seventh largest contributor of carbon dioxide in the world, just behind Germany.

The Galilee basin is just one of 14 giant fossil fuel projects – or ‘carbon bombs’ – around the world which would produce 6.3 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide a year in 2020 – as much as the entire US emits annually. They would together devour one-third of the carbon budget that cannot be breached if warming is to be kept below 2C, considered the threshold for dangerous climate change. The Guardian’s Keep it in the Ground campaign is highlighting the dangers posed by such projects.

The conservative coalition government in Australia is worried an adverse listing could damage the $6bn tourism industry that relies upon the reef.

Prime minister Tony Abbott, who has insisted that coal is “good for humanity”, has backed the development of the Galilee basin mines. However, the developments have been dogged by delays including court challenges from landholders, at a time when the global price of thermal coal has halved since the height of Australia’s coal boom five years ago.

Australia’s lobbying of Unesco’s world heritage committee has irked conservationists and opposition politicians who claim that more effort should be made in preserving the reef.

“What the reef needs right now is action, not overseas lobbying trips,” said Larissa Waters, an Australian Greens senator.

“To show real action to save the reef, the government should revoke its approval of the world’s largest coal port in the Great Barrier Reef at Abbot Point and introduce credible climate policies.”

Sebastian Bock, investment campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “Tony Abbott has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on a PR offensive to convince Unesco delegates that the reef is OK. We wish the government had fixed the problems and removed the threat of coal expansions to the reef rather than using spin to gloss over the problem.

“Scientists are warning us that we can have coal expansions or the reef – not both. The reef is on a knife’s edge. Putting more pressure on the reef by allowing more coal expansion is unthinkable. The Australian government must halt planned projects like the Carmichael mega-mine and the dredging and dumping at Abbot Point.

“If the Abbott government is serious about protecting the reef – as they keep telling the world they are – they should stop any Galilee coal project in its tracks.”

The Great Barrier Reef remains a huge tourism draw card for Australia but scientists have declared it in poor and declining condition, with the coral ecosystem degraded by pollution, a series of cyclones and a plague of coral-eating starfish.

The Great Barrier Reef: an obituary Read more

Climate change, however, is the reef’s largest long-term threat. Warming water will make it hard for many of the reef’s corals to survive, while the acidification of the oceans will hinder the ability of remaining corals to form their skeletons.

The government and the mining industry maintain that robust protections for the reef have been put in place and that any halt in coal mining would only harm Australia’s economy.

Michael Roche, chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council, has lashed Branson for his reef campaigning, during which the entrepreneur warned the reef is “under severe threat.”

“Mr Branson is happy to make profits from the Queensland economy, from flying mining workforces around the state and carrying tourists to see our wonderful natural beauty,” Roche said. “Why then does he think it is OK to sabotage our economy with his irresponsible declarations?”

The opening up of the Galilee basin has prompted concerns beyond climate change. Several farmers, who hold enormous grazing properties on the site of the planned mines, have spoken out over fears that their water supplies will be tarnished by the projects.

Meanwhile, an indigenous group has objected to the mines, which would tear open parts of their ancestral lands. The Wangan and Jagalingou people, who claim a connection to their central Queensland homelands dating back tens of thousands of years, are worried about spiritual, as well as environmental, destruction.

“We are afraid of being wiped out completely, all memory of our tribe will be erased forever due to mining,” said Adrian Burragubba, an Aboriginal musician and leading member of the clan. “If we can’t maintain what our forefathers gave us, we will become non-existent. It will be a barren wasteland, cultural genocide.”