A week is a long time in Australian climate change politics
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Version 0 of 1. It was the week where climate change roared back to the top of the national agenda, but not quite in the manner that advocates for rapid action to reduce emissions would have preferred. Tony Abbott and his environment minister, Greg Hunt, made strenuous efforts to downplay any connection between climate change and the New South Wales bushfires, only for the UN climate change chief, a former US vice-president, and even the government’s own scientists to express their dissent. Here’s a look back at some of the key moments from a week where science, climate politics and Wikipedia were pushed into the spotlight. Christiana Figueres on CNN The week kicked off with a CNN interview with Christiana Figueres, the UN’s top climate change official. Figueres told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that Abbott would pay a “high political price” for his Direct Action climate plan, before highlighting the link between rising temperatures and bushfire risks. “The World Meteorological Organization has not established a direct link between this wildfire and climate change – yet,” Figueres said. “But what is absolutely clear is the science is telling us that there are increasing heatwaves in Asia, Europe, and Australia; that these will continue; that they will continue in their intensity and in their frequency.” According to Amanpour’s blog: “Australia’s new prime minister, Tony Abbott, has expressed deep scepticism about climate change, once even calling it ‘absolute c**p’ (he has since walked those remarks back). “Abbott is trying to get rid of Australia’s carbon tax and has dissolved its climate change commission.” 'Talking through her hat' Abbott’s response to Figueres was swift and unambiguous. "The official in question is talking through her hat," he told 3AW. "Climate change is real, as I've often said, and we should take strong action against it. "But these fires are certainly not a function of climate change – they're just a function of life in Australia." Christine Milne, leader of the Greens, said Abbott’s comments were “symptomatic of his climate denial, and real losers are those who will suffer from extreme fires (and) floods.” A long, hot summer The bushfires, and Abbott’s response to them, has drawn international attention. According to the US’s Huffington Post: “A long, hot summer looms for Australian prime minister Tony Abbott as devastating wildfires near Sydney fuel opposition to his plans to repeal a carbon emissions tax, one of his basic campaign pledges in the election he won a month ago. “The links between the blazes and climate change caused by carbon emissions are complex and as the driest inhabited land mass on earth, deadly wildfires have been a perennial problem for Australia. “But a series of record-busting hot, dry conditions across the continent and an early start to the southern hemisphere summer has rekindled arguments on mankind's impact on climate and what can be done to mitigate it. “Abbott was elected in September on the back of plans to repeal Australia's scheme to price the carbon emissions responsible for global warming. He has promised to dissolve both the lower house and the Senate if his plan to scrap the scheme is blocked. “But as the fires spread, the pressure is mounting on Abbott, who once described the science around climate change as ‘absolute crap’.” Wikipedia Greg Hunt sought to hose down Figueres’s comments in an occasionally abrasive interview with the BBC’s Newshour. When asked by presenter Razia Iqbal if he agreed with Abbott’s comments about Figueres, Hunt replied that he had spoken to Figueres and that she indicated she had been misrepresented. “Australia has, since European settlement and obviously well before that, had a history of recurrent bushfire,” said Hunt. “I looked up what Wikipedia says, for example, just to see what the rest of the world thought, and it opens up with the fact that bushfires in Australia are frequently occurring events during the hotter months of the year. Large areas of land are ravaged every year by bushfires. That’s the Australian experience.” When asked whether he accepted that there is potentially a causal relationship between rising temperatures and bushfires, Hunt replied: “Well by definition, bushfires happen in hot weather.” Iqbal then pushed on the science behind fire weather being impacted by “changes in the climate, ergo climate change”. Hunt responded: “Well, we all have to be very careful. In talking with the senior people of the Bureau of Meteorology, for example, they always emphasise – never try to link any particular event to climate change.” Hunt, who has since been criticised for his use of Wikipedia for bushfire information, also took exception to Iqbal’s line of questioning. When Iqbal quoted Abbott saying climate change science was “crap”, Hunt responded that the government supports the science. '"So [Mr Abbott] no longer thinks it’s absolute crap?" ''Look, with great respect, you can swear on international radio, you can invite me from Australia to do this, you can be profoundly rude, I'm happy to answer but I'm not going to be sworn at.'' ''Mr Hunt, I'm merely quoting your prime minister,'' Iqbal replied. Inconvenient truths On Wednesday, former US vice-president and Nobel laureate Al Gore waded into the debate, telling the ABC’s 7.30 program that Abbott’s comments reminded him of the debate over whether tobacco caused cancer. "For 40 years the tobacco companies were able to persuade pliant politicians within their grip to tell the public what they wanted them to tell them, and for 40 years the tragedy continued," Gore said. "And bushfires can occur naturally, and do, but the science shows clearly that when the temperature goes up and when the vegetation and soils dry out, then wildfires become more pervasive and more dangerous. That's not me saying it, that's what the scientific community says. “It’s really not complicated.” By Thursday, the climate change/bushfire debate had gone truly global, with Time magazine deciding to delve into the issue. “Abbott is partly right – wildfires are part of the landscape in Australia, and scientists haven’t yet said whether manmade warming played a specific, detectable role in these fires,” wrote Bryan Walsh, a senior editor at Time. “Such climate-attribution studies can take years. Records in Australia on wildfires aren’t very deep, which makes it difficult to make judgments about what’s normal and what’s not. “But scientists have studied how warming might make wildfires in Australia more common and more destructive. “A study published last year in the International Journal of Climatology looked at fire-danger data from 38 sites around Australia between 1973 and 2010, and found that 16 of them showed a significant increase in fire weather. (None of the sites showed a decrease.) The study also found distinct increases in fire risk during the spring and autumn, meaning the fire season was getting longer.” “It’s really not that complicated – of much of Australia, climate change is likely to mean hotter, drier weather, and hotter, drier weather is perfect for starting and sustaining wildfires. “But here’s the reality: Australia is a country that has always lived on the edge of an inhospitable climate, which means it is poised to suffer more than most from unchecked warming in the future. That’s something the new prime minister would be wise to remember.” 'Complete hogwash' Abbott has stuck to his guns, however, telling New Corporation’s Andrew Bolt that media outlets espousing the link between bushfires and climate change were guilty of “complete hogwash”. “I suppose, you might say, that they are desperate to find anything that they think might pass as ammunition for their cause, but this idea that every time we have a fire or a flood it proves that climate change is real is bizarre, because since the earliest days of European settlement in Australia we've had fires and floods, and we've had worse fires and worse floods in the past than the ones we are currently experiencing,” Abbott said. “And the thing is that at some point in the future, every record will be broken, but that doesn't prove anything about climate change. It just proves that the longer the period of time, the more possibility of extreme events … the one in 500 year flood is always a bigger flood than the one in 100 year flood.” Science bites back By Friday, the scientific community was beginning to get a foothold in the debate. The Climate Council, which was borne from the Coalition-scrapped Climate Commission, released interim findings from a report on the link between climate change and fire. Professor Lesley Hughes, part of the council and an ecologist at Macquarie University, said: “Last summer was the hottest on record across Australia. Last September was also the hottest September on record. “South-east Australia is experiencing a long-term drying trend. This is consistent with the IPCC special report on extreme weather, which projects an increase in the number of consecutive dry days in south-east Australia. “When you have more frequent hot days and less rain, it increases the likelihood of extreme fire weather. The fires in NSW are being influenced by these conditions. “It is crucial for the public, emergency service workers and health workers to be able to prepare for more of this type of extreme weather,” Hughes said. “To deny the influence of climate change on extreme fire weather, and not take appropriate action to prepare for these changed conditions, places people and property at unnecessarily high risk. “We encourage all participants in the current debate to base their views on the peer-reviewed scientific literature and on reliable observational data, as it is important that information be provided to people in a dispassionate and accurate way.” And the minister responds A spokesman for environment minister Greg Hunt said, "When it comes to climate change, the government accepts the science. We will implement our Direct Action plan to cut domestic emissions by 5% by 2020. "Minister Hunt has said that you cannot draw a direct link between a specific event and climate change. Rather, climate change is about long-term trends. Australia's chief scientist made the point yesterday: 'It is not possible to link any one bushfire to climate change'." Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |