Bjorn Lomborg: The Great Barrier Reef refuses to die on schedule

Skip to Content News Archives Economy Energy Oil & Gas Renewables Electric Vehicles Mining Commodities Agriculture Real Estate Mortgages Mortgage Rates Finance Banking Insurance Fintech Cryptocurrency Work Wealth Smart Money Wealth Management Investor Personal Finance Family Finance Retirement Taxes High Net Worth FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials More Innovation Information Technology FP500 Podcasts Small Business Lives Told Tails Told Shopping Financial Post Store Obituaries Place a Notice Advertising Advertising With Us Advertising Solutions Postmedia Ad Manager Sponsorship Requests Classifieds Place a Classifieds ad Working Profile Settings My Subscriptions My Offers Newsletters Customer Service FAQ News Economy Energy Mining Real Estate Finance Work Wealth Investor FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.HomeFP CommentBjorn Lomborg: The Great Barrier Reef refuses to die on scheduleExperts have been predicting its imminent demise for 20 years, but in terms of coral cover, the past five years were the best on recordLast updated 15 minutes ago Fish swim through the coral on Australia's Great Barrier Reef in this photo taken in 2014. Photo by WILLIAM WEST/AFP via Getty ImagesAustralia’s marine scientists recently released their annual audit of the Great Barrier Reef, and it contains news you almost certainly haven’t heard: coral cover held steady or increased across most of the reef. In the 40 years scientists have been systematically measuring the reef, the five best years on record are the five most recent. 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In 2012, researchers reported that it had lost half its coral since the mid-1980s and they projected that cover could halve again by 2022. In 2014, the Guardian published an interactive obituary for the reef. In 2016, Outside magazine declared the reef dead at age 25 million.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againThe patient, it turned out, hadn’t read the notices. By 2021, coral cover was higher than at any point since measurements began in 1986. It stayed at unprecedented levels through 2022 and 2023 and climbed to a new all-time high in 2024. The reef answered two decades of death sentences with more coral than anyone had ever measured.The scientists even stopped publishing the reef-wide statistic — making it harder for the layperson to see easily that the reef was defying predictions. But they continued publishing regional averages, making it possible to effectively recreate their reef-wide average — which clearly kept increasing.This posed a problem, which the doomsayers solved with a new annual ritual: report the good number, then smother it in warnings. When the coral surged back in 2021, the monitoring institute insisted the outlook remained “very poor.” When 2022 set records, the BBC granted that cover was the highest in 36 years but said it was still “highly vulnerable.” In 2023, with the reef still near record highs, the official report was headlined a “pause” in recovery. At 2024’s peak, scientists declared the reef just one disturbance away from losing it all. The reckoning was always due next year. But next year kept arriving, and so did the coral.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.In 2025, the media decided the reckoning was finally at hand. “Great Barrier Reef suffers worst coral decline on record,” announced the BBC. CNN pronounced the reef “devastated.” What the headlines omitted was that the drop came off the highest level ever recorded, and 2025 still ranked as the fourth-best year in four decades of measurement. In any other field, a fourth best-ever result would be a triumph.The doomsayers pressed on, undeterred. Two prominent marine biologists recently warned that the reef faced a very high risk of “ecosystem collapse.” Weeks later we now have the actual data: coral growing again in the north and centre, stable in the south, helped by a late monsoon that cooled the water. The collapse has once again been rescheduled.When catastrophe fails to arrive, a second story stands ready: take a bow and send the bill. Australia’s federal and Queensland governments have spent more than five billion Australian dollars on reef programs since 2014, and when UNESCO declined in July to put the reef on its “in danger” list, ministers hailed the decision as recognition of Australia’s world-leading reef management. It takes nerve to spend years forecasting an ecosystem’s death and then claim credit for its health.This advertisement has not loaded yet.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.The reef’s swings have little to do with Canberra’s chequebook. The main spending that has a proven impact on coral cover is dealing with the crown-of-thorns starfish. When populations spike, these predators consume massive amounts of hard coral. The best estimate is that Australia’s spending on killing these starfish has delivered half a percentage point more coral cover. That is clearly not the main reason for the reef’s 10- to 25-percentage point rebound.Coral cover falls when cyclones, heat waves and crown-of-thorns starfish strike, and it rebounds because fast-growing branching corals do what they have done for millennia. Government spending does not summon the monsoon. And if the billions really did explain the record years, what would explain the 2025 drop? Did the money briefly stop working?None of this means the reef faces no threats. Bleaching events have hit six times since 2016. Coral cover fluctuates, and next year’s survey may well be lower. But fluctuation is not death, and an ecosystem that has just delivered the five best years in its 40-year record is not on its deathbed.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Every August the audit arrives, the doom does not, and those who predicted the reef’s demise go unchallenged. That should change because the exaggeration is not harmless. Crying wolf has a well-known ending. Despite years of funeral music being blasted at us by the world’s media, the Great Barrier Reef is still going strong.Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, is a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of “False Alarm” and “Best Things First.”This advertisement has not loaded yet.Notice for the Postmedia NetworkThis website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.