The outlook report said the reef provides a living for hundreds of thousands of people, making a significant contribution to the state and national economies. It found that a healthy reef boosts the mental and physical health of people who interact with it and contributes to Australia’s national identity.

Damage to the reef, it said, harms those who value it: “The flipside of strong place attachment and wellbeing attributed to connection to the reef emerges as ‘ecological grief’, expressed when the reef’s health declines.”

“Ocean warming, sea-level rise and ocean acidification are predicted to worsen over the next decades,” the report said. “While reef ecosystems are resilient and can recover from impacts, increasing occurrences of widespread coral bleaching are exceeding the limits of tolerance of reef organisms to climate change.”

Of the past 400 years, the six hottest years for sea surface temperatures on the Great Barrier Reef have occurred since 2016, according to an Australian study, Highest ocean heat in four centuries places Great Barrier Reef in danger, published this month.

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing global warming, has found that if global average temperatures – which are currently 1.1 degrees above the pre-industrial average – rise by 1.5 degrees, then 70 to 90 per cent of the world’s coral reefs will die. If warming reaches 2 degrees, it predicts 99 per cent of coral reefs will die.

Australian Marine Conservation Society Great Barrier Reef campaigner Lissa Schindler said the Albanese government should increase its action to cut emissions, which is currently consistent with global action that will cause 2 degrees of warming.

“Action to tackle climate change was rated ‘ineffective’ [in the outlook report], while actions to address major localised threats, poor water quality and fishing were rated only partially effective,” Schindler said.

Biodiversity Council member and University of Queensland coastal ecosystems expert Professor Catherine Lovelock said next to climate action, the best thing governments can do is invest in wetland protections and revegetate stream banks and gullies to reduce sediment runoff from farmland. These things enhance water quality and help the reef recover.