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"Ocean new frontline": Mass fish kills and coral bleaching linked to extreme marine heatwave

An escalating extreme marine heatwave has been identified as the cause of worsening fish kill events in WA’s Pilbara as coral bleaching events intensify across the Kimberley, which a WA climate scientist has described as local impacts of a climate crisis exacerbated by WA’s gas industry.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development has linked more than 30,000 dead fish washing up in recent weeks on Gnoorea Beach, just south of Woodside’s Burrup Hub in the Pilbara, with an extreme Category Three marine heatwave event that is likely to get worse in coming months.

It comes as a coral bleaching event has been unfolding since before Christmas in the Kimberley, where two reefs near Broome, Entrance Point reef and Coconut Wells reef, have bleached coral (see photos here) due to highly elevated ocean temperatures 4-5 degrees above normal in recent months.

“WA’s oceans are the new frontline in the escalating of a climate crisis being driven by fossil fuel extraction, which WA is continuing to expand despite our increasing carbon emissions. It’s critical that the next WA state government phases out fossil fuels and passes laws to limit climate pollution in line with international obligations” said Mia Pepper, the Campaigns Director at the Conservation Council of WA.

“It is a tragic irony that thousands of dead fish are washing up on a beach just down the coast from Woodside’s Burrup Hub, the largest gas plant in the Southern Hemisphere, which the WA government just approved until 2070, by which time it would emit 6 billion tonnes of CO2 and consign our coral reefs to the history books.”

“It is equally alarming that Woodside is seeking approval to drill Browse gas from underneath the precious and fragile Scott Reef, whose endangered turtles, whales and sea snakes are now also at risk from extreme ocean heatwaves directly driven by WA’s toxic gas industry.”

“Kimberley corals are known to be the most robust in the world and can withstand temperature ranges much more than corals elsewhere, but fragile ecosystems like the remote and precious Scott Reef are now at risk,” said Environs Kimberley Executive Director Martin Pritchard.

“70-90% of corals are predicted to die worldwide if temperatures remain at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. We are really concerned about the lack of any action or response from the Cook government to the dying coral reefs. It looks like they’re prepared to sign their death warrant by allowing the opening of new oil and gas frontiers like Woodside’s Burrup Hub and fracking in the Kimberley.”

“We need the state Environment Minister Reece Whitby to take action here so we actually understand the damage to Kimberley marine life so far and then he can tell us how the WA government will make sure it doesn’t get worse.”

If human-induced warming continues because fossil fuels are not phased out, marine heat wave intensity, duration and extent will continue accelerating until much of the tropical Indian ocean is in an almost permanent marine heatwave,” said Bill Hare, the CEO of Climate Analytics and a lead author of previous IPCC reports.

“Phasing out fossil gas is critical. We need to cut carbon emissions to zero by 2050, yet gas companies like Woodside are set to continue pumping out gas from beneath WA's coral reefs, under threat from these heatwaves, all the way to 2070, decades past our chance of keeping warming to 1.5˚C.”

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