Report says climate change raises fire risk

A report by the nation’s leading climate change advisory body has found climate change is increasing the probability of extreme bushfire conditions.

The landmark study by the Climate Council warns of increasing days of extreme fire danger in future across south-eastern Australia.

The Climate Council is the independent organisation established after the new conservative Liberal-National government abolished the Climate Commission in September.

A summary of the report, obtained by Fairfax Media, will put further pressure on Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Environment Minister Greg Hunt, who are resisting international criticism and insisting the ferocious bushfires threatening lives and homes have no link to climate change.

”While Australia has always experienced bushfires, climate change is increasing the probability of extreme fire weather days,” the Climate Council report finds.

”Climate change is making hot days hotter, and heatwaves more frequent and severe. Last summer, Australia experienced the hottest summer on record, and now has just had the hottest September on record

‘‘Southeastern Australia is experiencing a long-term drying trend. In New South Wales, soil moisture levels have been at record low levels now for a number of months. More intense and frequent hot weather, as well as dry conditions, increases the likelihood of extreme fire weather days,” Fairfax Media quotes the summary as saying.

Professor Lesley Hughes of Macquarie University and Professor Will Steffen of the Australian National University are writing the 25-page report, which will be released in full in November.

They have researched 60 pieces of peer-reviewed scientific literature on climate change and fire.

Both are former commissioners of the Climate Commission, chaired by Tim Flannery, which was disbanded by Mr Hunt a day after he was sworn in as minister.

The commission was set up by the previous Labor government to provide public information on global warming.

The decision to abolish it will save the government $1.6 million a year, however the Climate Council has raised more than $1 million of public funding to continue its work.

The full report will examine the bushfire crisis in New South Wales, with lethal fire conditions influenced by the hottest 12 months on record and the hottest September on record.

”The severity and scale of the fires may be unprecedented although until the data is assessed we can’t say for sure,” Professor Hughes told Fairfax Media.

She said it was an ”enormous shame” that climate change had become such a political hot potato.

”It’s too important an issue to be politicised,” she said.

Media reports indicate the political storm over the bushfire-climate link shows no sign of abating, with international experts continuing to weigh in to domestic politics and Mr Hunt facing ridicule over using Wikipedia to research bushfire facts.

The head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres, insisted a link existed between rising temperatures and bushfires.

The Fire Services Commissioner of Victoria, Craig Lapsley, agreed climate conditions increased fire risk.

”The facts are on the table that in Central Australia it was hotter than normal, hotter than any time on record,” he said.