If the rest of the world could vote in next month’s Australian election, there would almost certainly be one issue that would be raised to the top of the country’s political agenda: saving the Great Barrier Reef. Scientists say this year 93% of its reefs experienced some bleaching, and 22% of all of the reef’s coral was killed by unusually warm waters. Unheard of just three decades ago, large-scale bleaching has become a regular occurrence. Within 20 years the conditions that drove this year’s bleaching in Australia will occur every second year. A Guardian report illustrates in vivid detail the scale of the devastation unfolding beneath the surface. Over the past 34 years the average proportion of the Great Barrier Reef exposed to temperatures where bleaching or even death is likely has increased from about 11% a year to about 27% a year.

It is a constant struggle to motivate most people most of the time about climate change. The evidence accumulates slowly; despite being an emergency, it often feels very distant. But in Australia, and on other coral reefs around the world, we can see the sudden and devastating effects of climate change playing out before us. The Great Barrier Reef is under severe threat. Emergency action is needed on a much more ambitious scale than is now being planned. According to a Unesco report on climate change and world heritage sites, if we want to save even 10% of coral reefs around the world, the world needs to limit warming to 1.5C. And to save half of them, the world needs to limit warming to 1.2C – a tall order, when the world has already warmed by 1C.

Polling from conservation groups suggests measures to protect the Great Barrier Reef could be a vote-changer in Australia; 44% of those polled say it would influence their vote. And the major parties have at least got policy programmes of sorts in their manifestos. The ruling coalition of Liberals and Nationals reshuffled some money in the country’s budget in May, putting A$171m towards improving water quality – essential if the reef is to have a chance of recovery from the bleaching. They also announced $6m to help curb the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish. The opposition Labor party, the alternative government in a two-horse race, went further, promising $500m for research and action improving water quality. Not nearly enough, say the experts. They want $1bn a year, for 10 years. And they say to give the reef even a fighting chance, that needs to start immediately. Meanwhile the Coalition has dismantled Labor’s emissions trading scheme and pledged to cut emissions by between 26% and 28% below 2005 levels by 2030 under a contentious Direct Action scheme. The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who once lost his job as Liberal leader because of his support for Labor’s policy, has done little since he was restored to the role to alleviate a scepticism about climate change that is all too prevalent in his party. Labor under Bill Shorten has promised to introduce a new emissions trading scheme and increase the renewable energy target to 50% by 2030. The Greens have urged even stronger action and targets and have a leader, Richard Di Natale, who has put the reef at the heart of his campaign, even snorkelling amid the coral bleaching.

Nonetheless, this is a story that the institutions of government are keener to submerge than float. The campaign is mostly about tax, spending, pensions education, health and – in Australia as in the UK last year – refugees and immigration. It was instructive that, as the Guardian revealed last month, officials intervened to have the Great Barrier Reef – and indeed all mentions of Australia – removed from that Unesco report. Less exciting than America, less lurid than Trump – but Australia’s election, as the fate of the reef reminds us, has global consequences too.