Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has again dismissed claims his conservative Liberal-National government’s lack of action on climate change has heightened Australia’s bushfire risk, adding domestic climate action has no bearing on individual fires raging across Australia.
“To suggest that with just 1.3 per cent of global emissions that Australia doing something differently, more or less, would have changed the fire outcome this season, I don’t think that stands up to any credible scientific evidence at all,” he told ABC radio news.
Under pressure due to a record season of early bushfires and the accusation by a coalition of former fire chiefs that the government had avoided the issue of climate change, Mr Morrison even suggesting Australia could increase its emissions without making the current fire season worse.
Mr Morrison defended the government’s handling of the bushfire season, telling the ABC it had put additional resources into emergency services and praising the “outstanding” response and coordination of state governments.
Mr Morrison said he “took issue” with the suggestion by Greg Mullins, the former chief of New South Wales Fire and Rescue, and 23 other fire chiefs that the government was not adequately prepared.
Explaining why he did not meet Mr Mullins, Mr Morrison said the government already had the same advice about the impact of climate change from “existing fire chiefs doing the existing job”.
At first, Mr Morrison appeared to accept that climate change was affecting the severity and frequency of bushfires.
“These are things that are very well known to the government, the contribution of these issues to global weather conditions and to conditions here in Australia are known and acknowledged,” he said.
“In February I acknowledged the contribution of those factors to what was happening in Australia, amongst many other issues.”
However the Prime Minister then changed tack and said “the suggestion that any way shape or form that Australia, accountable for 1.3 per cent of the world’s emissions, that the individual actions of Australia are impacting directly on specific fire events, whether it’s here or anywhere else in the world, that doesn’t bear up to credible scientific evidence either”.
“Climate change is a global phenomenon and we’re doing our bit as part of the response to climate change, we’re taking action on climate change,” he said.
The comments follow a controversy in September when the minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, said he doesn’t “know if climate change is human made”, before a total about-face.
The link between greenhouse gas emissions and increased bushfire risk is complex but, according to major science agencies, clear.
Warmer weather increases the number of days each year on which there is high or extreme bushfire risk.
Australia’s response to climate change has been ranked one of the worst in the Group of 20 (G20), with rising greenhouse gas emissions since the Liberal-National government of then Prime Minister Tony Abbott abolished Australia’s carbon price in 2014.
Australia’s target of 26 per cent to 28 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 will require it to cut emissions by 695 million tonnes cumulatively across the next decade.
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