Australian environment think-tank the Climate Council has warned the country to prepare for more frequent and intense bushfires.
The council, which was formerly funded by the federal government before the conservative Liberal-National government scrapped it, has just released a report examining the risks of bushfires.
The Climate Council’s chief Professor Tim Flannery said that although bushfires in Australia are nothing new, there was a growing possibility that more fires would occur in the future.
Professor Flannery said climate change would increase the risk of frequent bushfires.
He said that as a result of bushfires many people had lost their lives, property and infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed.
The Council found hot days had doubled in the past 40 years and that heatwaves were longer and more frequent.
The report also found the country’s southwest and southeast were becoming drier and that the nation need to start preparing for the impacts on health, environment, and emergency service workers.
According to the Climate Council’s report, Australians need to understand the risks of climate change to prepare for the future.
The report also revealed that southeast and southwest of Australia is getting hotter because of climate change.
The Climate Council report also predicted sustained and frequent heat waves lasting from October until at least March in the coming years.
Professor Flannery said Australia must be prepared for these eventualities, especially communities prone to bushfires, and added that the number of emergency service personnel and health workers would drastically increase in the future because of climate change.
At the same time the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has declared 2013 as among the top 10 warmest years on record since 1850.
The rising sea levels due to climate change have aggravated the effect of strong cyclones like Typhoon Haiyan that left the Philippines overwhelmed and under a state of calamity.
According to WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud, the increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere meant warmer temperatures in the future and more extreme weather.
In climate change talks with almost 200 representatives from nations around the world, he said the first nine months of 2013 tied with the first nine months of 2003 with average global land and ocean surface temperature of over 48 degrees Celsius.
Aside from Typhoon Haiyan, other extreme weather disturbances include the record-breaking heat waves in Australia, leading climate scientists to suspect recent bushfires were enhanced by climate change.
The floods experienced from Sudan to Europe were also believed to be aggravated by climate change and rising global temperatures, according to the WMO.
