So Australian residents are really bracing through severe fires across NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.
As the Guardian reports, all of Australia’s mainland states, and the Northern Territory, had areas that reached more than 40C on Wednesday. That’s as residents were warned it was too late to leave as two serious bushfires hit areas of South Australia.
Meanwhile we have a code red bushfire warning over Australia. Therefore signifying the worst possible conditions. It was issued for parts of Victoria.
The highest temperatures recorded were 43.4C at Smithville in New South Wales and 42C at Walpepup in Victoria. Ballera in Queensland reached 43.7C (110.66F).
In addition, Warburton in WA got 43.8C. As well as Nullarbor in South Australia recorded 46.6C (115.88F). Finally in Lajamanu in the Northern Territory had hit 42.7C (108.86F)!
The Bureau of Meteorology said there had been multiple times when all mainland states had recorded temperatures of at least 40C. The record for the earliest date for such a record was 12 October 2004.
A pre-summer heatwave has Victoria ready for code red bushfire conditions in the north as well as a state-wide total fire ban.
So what is Australia’s climate change commitment?
The nation’s target under the Paris Agreement won’t be made with Australia as is. That’s because the Paris Climate Agreement deal to tackle rising global temperatures is a 26-28% reduction in emissions by 2030. Some have criticized that as inadequate for a G20 country.
Last year, the UN reported that Australia is also the world’s largest coal exporter. So therefore they are not on track to meet its commitments.
In addition, Mr Morrison told the UN last year that Australia was doing its bit to address climate change. As well as “balancing our global responsibilities with sensible and practical policies to secure our environmental and our economic future”.
So are these bushfires due to climate change?
As the BBC discusses: “We find it very difficult in general to attribute climate change impacts to a specific event. Especially and particularly while the event is running. Not the things I’d say but came from Dr Richard Thornton. He is chief executive of the Bushfires & Natural Hazards Co-operative Research Centre.
So now Farmers are Australia’s ‘unlikely’ climate activists. All because they are living with the strain of a devastating drought.
Black Saturday 2009: The day Australia saw ‘the gates of hell’
Prof Glenda Wardle, an ecologist from the University of Sydney, agreed: “It’s not every weather event that is the direct result of climate change. But when you see trends… it becomes undeniably linked to global climate change.”
Image copyright JACKI POCOCK Massive bushfires in November have destroyed hundreds of homes
She said there was a “collective shift” in the timing. As well as the intensity of weather events.
Will Australia’s bushfires get worse?
“Everything we normally see as variability between a good fire season and a bad season is sitting on top of that extra 1C – and that means that the severe events will occur more frequently.”
Why Australia bushfires are now “hotter and more intense as BBC adds, But Prof Wardle said the government was “passing the buck” on climate change and not doing enough to help stem the rise in global temperatures.
“It hasn’t just been fires, there’s been flood, there’s the drought,” she said. “Every time [the government] has had the chance to take on the big issue of climate change and do something, they choose not to and blame other things like land management.”
Image copyright AFP
Dr Ahmed said the leaders’ responses this week were a “very unfortunate” reaction to peer-reviewed warnings by leading scientists.
Was Australia warned about the risk?State of the Climate 2018 report said climate change had led to an increase in extreme heat events and increased the severity of other natural disasters, such as drought.
In April, 23 former fire chiefs and emergency leaders issued a letter, warning the government about “increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events”. It requested a meeting which was declined by the government.
Now The Daily Mail reporting Australia is teetering on the edge of a humanitarian crisis as remote communities remain cut off from medical help, water sources are compromised and food and fuel supplies run low.
A Navy ship that delivered emergency supplies to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake has left Sydney and is expected to reach the waters off the fire-stricken town of Mallacoota, Victoria, on Thursday.
Sources: The Guardian, BBC, The Daily Mail
