We can’t pretend we’re doing enough if we want to give the Great Barrier Reef a chance to survive | Adam Morton

With mass bleaching events so frequent, the prognosis is bad. Australia must lead with its actions on emissions and phasing out fossil fuel development

What will it take for us to collectively pay attention? Not a new question, but a reasonable one after the official declaration that the Great Barrier Reef is suffering through another mass bleaching event driven by global heating - the fifth since 2016.

There is no clearer visual demonstration of the climate crisis than what is happening to the reef. It's a globally unique landmark, made up of thousands of individual reefs and islands and an extraordinary and eccentric array of species. It has been growing into its modern form, spread across an area the size of Italy, for about 8,000 years. People travel from across the planet to witness it. And we can literally see the impact of climate change on it as it changes colour and loses life in real time.