Mystik Dan wins the 150th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in a three-horse photo finish
Mystik Dan won the 150th Kentucky Derby in a photo finish, edging out Forever Young and Sierra Leone for the upset victory.
Australia said Tuesday it will fight against plans to downgrade the Great Barrier Reef's World Heritage status due to climate change, while environmentalists have applauded the UN World Heritage Committee's proposal.
The committee said in a draft report on Monday that "there is no possible doubt" that the network of colourful corals off Australia's northeast coast was "facing ascertained danger."
The report recommends that the world's most extensive coral reef ecosystem be added to UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger, which includes 53 sites, when the World Heritage Committee considers the question in China in July.
The listing could shake Australians' confidence in their government's ability to care for the natural wonder and create a role for UNESCO headquarters in devising so-called "corrective measures," which would likely include tougher action to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
Any downgrade of the reef's World Heritage status could reduce tourism revenue that the natural wonder generates for Australia because fewer tourists would be attracted to a degraded environment and dead coral.
Reef cruise operators said the report was wrong and that tourists continued to be awed by dazzling coral and multicoloured fish. But some tourists said the reef had seemed more colourful during visits decades ago.
Environment Minister Sussan Ley said she and Foreign Minister Marise Payne had called UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay to express the government's "strong disappointment" and "bewilderment" at the proposal.
Australia, which is one of 21 countries on the committee, will oppose the listing, Ley said.
"This decision was flawed. Clearly there were politics behind it," Ley told reporters. "Clearly those politics have subverted a proper process and for the World Heritage Committee to not even foreshadow this listing is, I think, appalling."
The network of 2,500 reefs covering 348,000 square kilometres (134,000 square miles) has been World Heritage-listed since 1981.
But its health is under increasing threat from climate change and rising ocean temperatures.
The report found the site had suffered significantly from coral bleaching events caused by unusually warm ocean temperatures in 2016, 2017 and last year.
Australian Marine Conservation Society environmental consultant Imogen Zethoven welcomed the committee's recognition that "Australia hasn't done enough on climate change to protect the future of the reef."
The reef would become the first site to be added to the List of World Heritage in Danger primarily for climate change reasons, Zethoven said.
"It would be a very significant step for the World Heritage Committee to make this decision and one that we really hope that it does make because it will open up a lot of potential change," she said.
Richard Leck, a spokesman for the environmental group WWF, said listing the reef as in-danger would be "a real shock" to many Australians.
In 2014, Australia was warned that an "in danger" listing was being considered rather than being proposed for immediate action.
Australia had time to respond by developing a long-term plan to improve the reef's health called the Reef 2050 Plan.
The committee said this week that plan "requires stronger and clearer commitments, in particular towards urgently countering the effects of climate change."
Ley said climate change policy debate should be restricted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"I know ... that climate change is the biggest threat to the reef and in no way am I stepping away from that recognition and countries including European countries have got strong views about what policies different countries should have on climate change and I understand that as well, but this is not the convention in which to have those conversations," Ley said, referring to the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.
Observers say the swearing in on Tuesday of new Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who opposes action on climate change that increases prices, signals Australia is likely to set less ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council's Center for Excellence in Coral Reef Studies, said Australia's refusal to commit to a net zero carbon emissions target by 2050 made the country a "complete outlier."
"This draft decision from UNESCO is pointing the finger at Australia and saying: 'If you're serious about saving the Great Barrier Reef, you need to do something about your climate policies,"' Hughes told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Mystik Dan won the 150th Kentucky Derby in a photo finish, edging out Forever Young and Sierra Leone for the upset victory.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.