Australia is one of the world's biggest CO2 emitters per capita, but has only pledged to cut its emissions by five per cent from 2000 levels by 2020. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that the Great Barrier Reef could be "functionally extinct" within decades, with deadly coral bleaching likely to be an annual occurrence by 2030.

At a summit to save the Great Barrier Reef on 24 October, Premier Anna Bligh asked the public how to improve the sediment-laden water that threatens to choke the Reef. She still plans to triple Queensland's record export rate of climate-changing coal by 2030, and ignores Greens MP Ronan Lee's advice to restore water monitoring programs axed by her Government in 1999.

See also: "Queensland Government cracks down on farmers near Barrier Reef" on the ABC of 27 Oct 08, "Qld may regulate farms to save Reef" in SMH of 24 Oct 08, "Great Barrier Reef summit today" in The Australian of 24 Oct 08.