[acsinuk (OP)]

A sky news report tonight, on climate change highlighted the importance of kelp to grow inside coral reefs to protect them.  So what is Australia and Florida doing to protect our coral reefs?

[alancalverd]

What the UK is doing is abandoning the Common Fisheries Policy to protect a whole lot of cold water habitats including North Sea coral and kelp.

[Petrochemicals]

Stop bottom trawling. In fact this is probably a major cause of climate change, ocean acidification.

[evan_au]

Stop bottom trawling. In fact this is probably a major cause of climate change, ocean acidification.

These two sentences have nothing to do with each other.
Don't try to conflate the two.

Bottom Trawling
I have no doubt that bottom trawling destroys a lot of seafloor habitats - they are effectively killing the source of their own income. So better controls on bottom trawling is a good idea.

Climate Change & Ocean Acidification
But Bottom Trawling has nothing to do with climate change and ocean acidification, which are mainly caused by Petrochemicals.
- Increased burning of Petrochemicals dumps more CO₂ into the atmosphere, which increases global temperatures
- This is despite the fact that much of this atmospheric CO₂ is absorbed by the oceans, creating carbonic acid, which is bad news for any marine animal with a shell, skeleton or scales (ie most of the sea creatures we care about).
- We are likely to be left with an ocean of jellyfish. I have tried eating jellyfish, and they are not very appetizing.