Check your subscription status, update your details and more. Shallow-water coral reefs are at high risk of disappearing by 2075, the IUCN has warned at a UN biodiversity conference. The loss would decimate fisheries and speed up coastal erosion Imagine a world without tropical coral reefs, a world nearly devoid of iconic species like elkhorn and pillar corals and sea creatures like the clownfish from Finding Nemo.
That world could come to pass within 50 years due to humanity’s continuing fossil fuel emissions. At least 96 per cent of shallow-water coral reef ecosystems are at extremely high risk of collapsing by 2075, according to an assessment by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the leading authority on endangered species. Four per cent were not evaluated due to lack of data but are probably just as vulnerable, according to Marcos Valderrábano at the IUCN.
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