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One involves a biodegradable reflective surface polymer film of calcium carbonate to reflect solar radiation, while the other would pump water from depths of 10 to 30 meters to ease the heat stress of surface corals.
Funding has been awarded for feasibility studies of geoengineering technologies to protect the reef: (1) a 'floating sunshield' of
reflective surface made of calcium carbonate to reflect sunlight and lower water temperatures; (2) marine cloud brightening; and (3) water
mixing.Credit:Climate Policy
The third proposal would be to reduce the incidence of solar radiation reaching the sea surface.
"Australia currently has no national law or policy governing geoengineering or solar radiation management, or even on how such activities might fit into national climate response strategy," the paper notes.
Jan McDonald, a professor of environmental and climate law at the University of Tasmania and the paper's lead author, said the prognosis [for the reef] is looking pretty grim ", with scientists estimating most of the world's corals will be lost even if global warming is kept to the bottom of the Paris climate goal of 1.5 to 2 degrees.
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As a result, it is inevitable climate interventions will be tried and tested with a view to "serious obligation to reduce carbon dioxide", Professor McDonald said.
The experience in Britain, where a government-funded project aimed at assessing the feasibility of injecting particles into the stratosphere was halted in 2012, "said she. Without that, the public trust in regulators or the research would be lost, "probably a dangerous path to go down".
Bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef corals in 2017, the second year of unprecedented back-to-back mass bleaching. Credit:AAP
"Australia has the opportunity to do the right thing by the Great Barrier Reef but to provide a model of good governance for other countries grappling with this issue," Professor McDonald said.
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Federal Environment Minister Melissa Price was here for comment.
Labor environment spokesman Tony Burke said: "We are the custodians of the planet's most precious and most vulnerable environmental asset.
"If we win the election, then we would listen to the experts both on individual projects and the overall framework for protecting the Great Barrier Reef."
Greens spokeswoman on the Great Barrier Reef Larissa Waters noted that Nature 89 per cent of new corals were not surviving.
"[That] "Senator Waters said."
"There should be an assessment framework for geoengineering experiments to ensure new problems are not being created."
Peter Hannam writes on the environment for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
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