MELBOURNE -- The Australian government is facing widespread international criticism for secretly -- and successfully -- lobbying to have references to its ailing Great Barrier Reef and other World Heritage-listed sites removed from a United Nations report, fearing it would hurt the country's multibillion-dollar tourist industry.

The report, "World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate," was published on May 26 by UNESCO, the U.N.'s educational, scientific and cultural agency, and lists 31 natural and cultural sites around the world deemed to be at "risk from climate change." Among them were Australia's Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park and Tasmanian forests.

It was revealed around the time of the report's publication that, after unprecedented intervention at the report's drafting stage by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's conservative government, all references to the Great Barrier Reef, which lies off Australia's northeastern coast, and other tourist sites across the nation were removed.

Climate change expert Will Steffen, head of Australia's Climate Council and emeritus professor at the Australian National University, told the Nikkei Asian Review that he had reviewed a section of the draft report on the Great Barrier Reef -- only for it to be cut later.

"I was very surprised that the text had been removed," said Steffen, who earlier told media that Australia's behavior was something he associated more with the former Soviet Union than with a modern Western-style democracy.

"[The section] was accurate scientifically, very factual and not at all sensational. It even included some text that described what the Australian government was doing to improve the water quality on parts of the reef," he said.

UNESCO says on its website that it removed information about "Australian sites" from the report at the request of the government in Canberra. In a statement, Australia's Environment Department confirmed that the request had been made.

"The department expressed concern that giving the report the title 'Destinations at Risk' had the potential to cause considerable confusion'," the statement said, referring to an earlier, apparently provisional title.

The Great Barrier Reef attracts about 2 million visitors a year.

"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 statement said.

The Great Barrier Reef attracts about 2 million visitors each year, generating some $4 billion in tourism revenues. In the draft report's original section about the Great Barrier Reef, which was leaked to the media, climate change is cited as the "primary long-term threat to the integrity and biodiversity of the world's most extensive coral reef ecosystem."

The final report is a detailed account of the challenges that other World Heritage-listed sites are facing. Some of the challenges listed at other sites -- such as mass coral-bleaching -- are strikingly similar to those confronting the Great Barrier Reef.

"Many of the world's most important coral reefs, including in the islands of New Caledonia in the western Pacific, have suffered unprecedented coral bleaching linked to climate change this year," said Adam Markham, a lead author of the report.

The disclosure of the Australian government's intervention came as new research showed that corals on the Great Barrier Reef are dying at an alarming rate. Coral bleaching -- which occurs when water becomes too warm and forces corals to expel living algae, calcify and turn white -- has killed some 35% of corals on the northern and central reefs, according to experts from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia. About 95% of corals on the Great Barrier Reef are showing the effects of bleaching.

"Much more extreme"

Prof. Terry Hughes, head of the JCU team that undertook the research, said that only four of more than 500 reefs surveyed around the world did not show signs of bleaching. "This year is the third time in 18 years that the Great Barrier Reef has experienced mass bleaching due to global warming, and the current event is much more extreme than we've measured before," Hughes said.

The previous two incidents were also significant. Amid record sea temperatures in 1998, some 50% of the area's reefs were affected by bleaching. Four years later, a similar warming event affected about 60% of the area's reefs.

"These three events have all occurred while global temperatures have risen just 1 degree Celsius above the preindustrial period," Hughes said. "We're rapidly running out of time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

Conservative governments in Canberra have previously shown reluctance to accept warnings about climate change threats to the Great Barrier Reef. Speaking at the 2014 G-20 summit of the biggest economies in Brisbane, the closest major city to the Great Barrier Reef, U.S. President Barack Obama emphasized the threat of global warming to the reef, adding that he hoped it would still be there in 50 years' time.

Obama pledged $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, designed to help developing countries adapt to the challenges of climate change. However, the Australian government, then led by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, successfully resisted U.S. efforts to get climate change onto the G-20 agenda.

Abbott ignored calls to support the climate fund, while Foreign Minister Julie Bishop accused Obama of not having "been briefed" about Australia's efforts to protect the World Heritage-listed site, maintaining that, "Australia knows better than anyone the importance of preserving the Great Barrier Reef."

Coal-fired protests

Australia's reliance on coal, its second-biggest export after iron ore, is a central factor in the climate change debate in Australia. Both the ruling Liberal-National coalition and the opposition Labor Party have been criticized by environmentalists for continuing to support large-scale coal projects.

In response to the release of the coral bleaching findings, the Greens, the nation's third largest political force, urged the government to stop digging new coal mines and propping up "dying, polluting" industries. The party also wants significant investment in clean energy and a ban on political donations from environmentally "dirty" sources.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said that due to the number of jobs in the coal industry -- which employs about 40,000 people -- coal remains "absolutely critical to our country." He added, however, that Australia was beginning to rely more on clean energy.

"If you're going to talk about coal, it is coming down as a proportion of the overall mix," he told the national broadcaster, the ABC. "We've seen in Australia eight out of the 12 most emissions-intensive coal fired power stations close over the past five years."

Opposition leader Bill Shorten, whose Labor party is hoping to win a national election on July 2, has promised to make protecting the reef one of the party's "highest priorities," pledging some $360 million to create a fund to protect the reef. The government says the programs proposed by Labor cover much of the same ground it is already treading.

While the election has generated much comment about environmental issues among politicians, Hughes said many were failing to relate the problems on the reef to the industries contributing to climate change. And time, he warned, was running out.

"While it's good to see both sides of politics talking about improvements to coral reef management, neither of them is really dealing with the ... core issue facing the Barrier Reef -- and that is these recurring bleaching events due to global emissions of greenhouse gases," he said.