According to BBC News, a leaked report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Australia’s famous Great Barrier Reef could be dead within decades because of the effects of global warming and thus a warmer ocean.

The draft document warns that the Great Barrier Reef will become “functionally extinct” because of coral bleaching - which occurs when the animal organisms that make up the coral die, leaving behind a white limestone skeleton…But in the future, the Barrier Reef may not have the chance to recover, scientists warn, as temperatures continue to rise and the sea becomes more acidic. This raises the risk that the coral will die outright.

More on this later today…