Australia will oppose a draft World Heritage Committee recommendation that Queensland's Great Barrier Reef be singled out for an "in danger" listing.
Environment Minister Sussan Ley said officials have been "stunned by a back flip" after assurances from officials that the Reef would not face the recommendation before to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting hosted by China next month.
The UNESCO report said it has "upmost concern and regret" that the state of the reef has "further deteriorated" since 2019 and that progress has been "insufficient".
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It said the reef has suffered "significantly" from mass bleaching events in 2016, 17 and 20.
It says climate change is "the most serious threat" and called on Australia to take "urgent action", mentioning the Paris Agreement.
It asked Australia to provide a new report by February 1, 2022.
However, Ms Ley claimed that the draft decision had been made "on the basis of a desk top review with insufficient first-hand appreciation of the outstanding science-based strategies being jointly funded by the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments."
She claimed the site is "the best managed reef in the world" and claimed officials made the move without "examining" the Reef or without the latest information".
"In a call to the Director General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, with Foreign Minister Marise Payne overnight, I expressed Australia's dissatisfaction with the process that is being followed," Ms Ley said in a statement.
"I made it clear that we will contest this flawed approach, one that has been taken without adequate consultation.
"This sends a poor signal to those nations who are not making the investments in reef protection that we are making.
"If it is being proposed on the basis of the very real threat of global climate change, then there are any number of international World Heritage Sites that should be subject to the same process.
"I agree that global climate change is the single biggest threat to the world's reefs but it is wrong, in our view, to single out the best managed reef in the world for an 'in danger' listing.
"When a previous endangered listing was first foreshadowed under Labor in 2012, the Coalition drove the internationally renowned Reef 2050 plan to remove that threat, and that plan continues to set the benchmark in Reef management."
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There are currently 53 sites on the 'danger' list according to UNESCO.
They include the old city of Jerusalem, the UK city of Liverpool, Syrian city of Aleppo, Madagascan rainforests of Atsinanana and Everglades National Park in Florida, USA.
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