Victorian taxpayers are about to fund a full-scale royal commission into the catastrophic bushfires of February 7 in which 208 people – probably more – were burnt to death.
It is significant to note that two stakeholder groups have already come to concluded views: the 13,000 professional firefighters of Australia and the Climate Institute, which commissions scientific research in Australia into fires and global atmospheric warming.
Climate Institute CEO John Connor told Stateline NSW (on February 20, 2009) that in his organisation’s concluded view: “These are the fires of climate change that we’ve seen in Victoria and perhaps indeed in Port Lincoln in South Australia in 2005. Climate change is not just about warmer weather. It’s about wilder weather. Climate change costs … climate change kills”.
In 2007 the Climate Institute (www.climateinstitute.org.au) commissioned research by the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO Marine and Atmosphere Research. The researchers produced a paper, “Bushfire Weather in Southeast Australia”, which, like actuaries for the insurance industry, projected extreme and catastrophic fire weather risks for the regions of Australia through each increment in global atmospheric warming.
The paper did not then declare Sydney’s ‘Black Christmas’ bushfires in late 2001, the Canberra bushfires in January 2003 or the 2003 and 2007 eastern Victorian bushfire to be directly related to climate change. The language was equivocal: “The recent observed rise in fire danger may be due to a mix of both natural variability and human-induced climate change. The relative importance of these two factors is not known at this time. Observations from the next few years to decades will allow the determination of the role played by each of these factors”.
While some politicians have accepted that climate change is behind the exponential increase in extreme fire weather, no government – state, territory of federal – has yet declared the now deadly bushfire phenomenon in Australia to be by scientific definition ‘the fires of climate change’.
The 13,000 professional firefighters of Australia have collectively determined that climate change is producing the extreme fire weather conditions which have confronted them over recent years. This again is a significant declaration in a body (the United Firefighters Union of Australia) which is known to have its share of climate change sceptics within the membership.
In the open letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (dated February 12), national secretary Peter Marshall said:
“Consider the recent devastation in Victoria. Research by the CSIRO, Climate Institute and the Bushfire Council found that a ‘low global warming scenario’ will see catastrophic fire events happen in parts of regional Victoria every 5-7 years by 2020, and every 3-4 years by 2050, with up to 50 per cent more extreme danger fire days. However, under a ‘high global warming scenario’, catastrophic events are predicted to occur every year in Mildura, and firefighters have been warned to expect an up to 230 per cent increase in extreme fire days in Bendigo. And in Canberra, the site of devastating fires in 2003, we are being asked to prepare for up to a massive 221 per cent increase in extreme fire days by 2050.”
The Climate Institute’s website gives a state by state, region by region break down of FFDI (forest fire danger index) tracking the annual change in fire weather.
“Of most concern to firefighters are days classified as having ‘very high’ or ‘extreme’ fire dangers. The number of very high and extreme fire-weather days is projected to increase in all scenarios. For example, in Canberra, if the rate of global warming is low, the number of extreme days increases around 8-10 per cent by 2020, and 17-25 per cent by 2050. If the rate of global warming is high, the number of extreme days rises 25-42 per cent by 2020 and 137-221 per cent (around double to triple) by 2050.”
As the politicians, economists, insurance companies and emergency services struggle to come to terms with what this means, Australians residing and working in the bush landscapes have clearly been warned.
Do they abandon their now-dangerous lifestyles, or do they push for policy responses which confront the fires of climate change?
– from abc. 20 Feb 2009