Climate change has claimed another victim. Almost one-quarter of the coral in Australia's Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area — one of the world's richest and most complex ecosystems — has died this year, in the worst mass coral bleaching in recorded history. Even in the far northern reaches of the reef, long at a sufficient distance from human pressures like coastal development to preserve, to a large extent, coral health, a staggering 50 percent of the coral has died.

The above-average sea temperatures that triggered this bleaching were made 175 times more likely by climate change. As the ocean continues to absorb heat from the atmosphere, large-scale coral bleaching like that which has decimated the Great Barrier Reef — not to mention other destructive phenomena spurred by rising temperatures — is likely to become even more frequent and devastating.

The future of priceless World Heritage sites — and, indeed, our planet — depends on the immediate reduction of climate-change-inducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet many of the governments responsible for protecting these sites within their borders are not only failing to take strong climate action; they are actively pursuing dirty energy projects like coal mines and coal-fired power plants.