Catastrophic Bushfires Kill Four, Intensify Division Over Climate Change

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology noted a long-term increase in extreme fire events. (Wikimedia Commons)

Nearly 150 fires are burning in Queensland and New South Wales (NSW), which have killed four people and destroyed more than 200 homes as of November 13, according to NPR.

In NSW, Australia’s most populous state, the bushfires have scorched at least one million hectares, coming as close as nine miles to Sydney’s city center.

The sheer scale of the fires has required the deployment of around 3,000 firefighters. The Insurance Council of Australia reports that the ongoing disaster has incurred at least $34 million in losses thus far.

NSW Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons fears that the hard fight against bushfires may drag on into the coming months. “We’ve really got a long way to go. You can guarantee we’re not going to be able to get around all of these fires before the next wave of bad weather,” he told BBC reporters. “Unfortunately there’s no meaningful reprieve. There’s no rainfall in this change and we’re going to continue to have warm dry conditions dominating in the days and weeks ahead.”

Scientists point out that climate change has likely exacerbated the scale of the seasonal fires. According to the Bureau of Meteorology’s State of the Climate report in 2018, there is an observable “long-term increase” in extreme heat events. Moreover, temperatures in Australia are now hovering around 1°C above average.

“It’s not every weather event that is the direct result of climate change,” said ecologist Glenda Wardle from the University of Sydney. “But when you see trends... it becomes undeniably linked to global climate change.”

The ongoing catastrophe has intensified political divisions over climate change, stoking a debate that has landed many politicians in controversy. When asked about the implications of global warming, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack told ABC National Radio that bushfire victims are in need of “real assistance” rather than “the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital city greenies.”

Former-Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce added to the outrage by commenting to Sky News that two of the four people killed were probably Green Party voters. He further labeled the link between the fires and climate change as “spurious.”

As a signatory of the Paris Climate Accords, Australia has promised to reduce its emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2030. However, the UN Emissions Gap Report in 2018 claimed that Australia is falling short of this goal.

“Every time [the government] has had the chance to take on the big issue of climate change and do something,” she said, “they choose not to and blame other things like land management,” said Wardle, according to BBC.

According to the New York Times, Damien Cave said that coal is the primary culprit for the government’s inaction, and Australia—the world’s largest coal exporter—is often swayed by the mining industry’s powerful lobby. However, according to Cave, as natural disasters intensify, public pressure for the government to take meaningful action will only “grow with the flames.”