Change Management

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Tags: summer-2012

Global change is having an impact on our coral reefs

By Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director, Global Change Institute

In my lifetime global change has been more rapid and profound than at any other time in human history.

Human populations have soared to their highest point ever, technology has developed exponentially and the Earth’s atmosphere has changed in ways unlike any for millions of years.

And many beautiful places that were once thought to be invulnerable are now under threat of annihilation.

Nothing could bring this point home more strongly than what has happened in the ecosystems I have spent my career studying. Coral reefs are the most biologically-diverse ecosystems on the planet, yet are being threatened by the fundamental changes occurring in our oceans.

The best science indicates they may well disappear by the middle of this century. A shocking situation by any measure.

What is intriguing about these modern problems is that the solutions lie well outside biology. While we might throw ourselves at the immediate problems of pollution and the physical destruction of reefs, solving the problems of climate change and overfishing for these wonderful ecosystems involves a much broader sphere of problem-solving.

For example, fixing the problem of coastal poverty holds the key to preserving coral reefs in many countries where extracting the last fish from reefs is a matter of either having food or not having food.

At the Global Change Institute (GCI), our multi-disciplinary research agenda covers renewable energy, food security, land use and a series of other sectors that are outside my field, yet which are extremely important in terms of finding a solution for addressing the changes in our world.

Crossing these research boundaries can be confronting. Most of the eminent scientists at the GCI find themselves outside of their comfort zones. Yet, what we’ve learnt is that there is huge power in bringing people together and thinking “outside the box”.

It’s exhilarating to know you can have an impact on changing the world no matter what your particular interests are. By mixing things up, we think we will uncover better solutions.

Already, we are engaged in solving tricky problems such as the impact of sea–level rise on coastal communities and we’re driving changes in power generation towards a low-carbon future.

What’s exciting about meeting the challenge of global change is that many solutions to our problems already exist. All we need to do is work out how to implement them.

With over a billion minds hooked up together via the Internet, the chance of breakthroughs and solutions is escalating in all directions.
It is one thing for science to tell people there is a threat to life and the planet, yet it’s another to influence them to do something about it, when the crisis may be decades away.

For example, scientific research tell us that rising sea surface temperatures, caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), in the atmosphere, increase the likelihood of mass bleaching events which kill coral reefs.

So, the solution in this case is a worldwide switch from fossil fuel-based energy systems to renewable energy, in order to address rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

This transformation would enable atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to stabilise at levels that will give coral reefs a chance. Without this action, they don’t stand a chance.

The cost to the global economy of such a transformation, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,  is little more than one-tenth of one percent of growth in global gross domestic product per annum.

So, the investment required to preserve a brilliant and economically-important ecosystem on our planet is the equivalent to taking off one year of GDP growth over the next 50 years.

It is pretty hard to argue that this cost is a little more than miniscule when compared to the trillion dollar costs of repairing the damage to ecosystems like coral reefs.
Despite the evidence of a looming crisis in our oceans and the long-term economic benefit of switching from fossil fuels, there has not been a transformation of practice in the private sector and policy in the public sector, nor a major change of behaviour in society.

The key question now is: “How do we take the ideas that have evolved and influence action, in terms of policy, practice and behaviour?” An answer to this question is both urgent and immediate.

In a nutshell, it isn’t good enough to have a great idea or solution; what we need to tackle is the “science” of taking action. We need a pathway for this transformation to occur.

It was Albert Einstein, perhaps the greatest “out of the box thinker” ever, who said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Our challenge today and tomorrow is to think differently about how to transform policies, society and institutions.

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director, Global Change Institute

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is inaugural Director of the Global Change Institute (GCI) and Professor of Marine Science at The University of Queensland. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the University of Sydney and a PhD from the University of California Los Angeles. In 1999, he was awarded the Eureka Prize for his scientific research and, in 2012, was named an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow.
For more information about the Global Change Institute, visit www.gci.uq.edu.au

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