ArgumentThe Lessons from Australia’s Fires

Published 14 January 2020

You might think that Australia is particularly vulnerable to forest fires. But that would be a mistake. Many other countries share the same conditions that have set Australia ablaze, physically and politically, including similar terrain and a leadership that has yet to wake up fully to the new reality that climate change is creating.

The Economist writes that “You might think that Australia is particularly vulnerable to forest fires. But that would be a mistake. Many other countries share the same conditions that have set Australia ablaze, physically and politically, including similar terrain and a leadership that has yet to wake up fully to the new reality that climate change is creating.”

Worldwide, fire seasons are getting longer and more damaging. The Economist notes that the areas at risk include America’s west coast, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and swathes of Central Asia. If that sounds alarmist, remember that in 2018 California had the deadliest forest fires in its history, killing more than 80 people and causing parts of Los Angeles to be evacuated, while more than 100 people died in wildfires in Greece.

As a result, the lessons from Australia’s tragedy are important. One is that climate change is making infernos more likely. It is true that forest fires are a long-standing part of some territories’ ecology. But as the world gets hotter and drier, their incidence and severity are rising. In 2019 Australia’s mean temperature was the highest since records began in 1910, 1.5°C above the long-run average. The amount of rainfall, meanwhile, was 40% below the long-term average and at the lowest level since 1900. For at least a decade climate models, sometimes derided by sceptics, have accurately predicted worsening droughts and infernos in Australia.

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The last lesson is that, as the costs of climate change stop being just about abstract temperature forecasts and start being something you can smell in your nostrils, the politics surrounding it will change, too.