Australia Plays Down Drought Causes As wildfire Risk increases 300 Percent
Pastor Dale Morgan
Australia Plays Down Drought Causes As wildfire Risk increases 300 Percent*
by Staff Writers
Sydney (AFP) Sept 26, 2007
Prime Minister John Howard warned against linking Australia's worst
drought on record to doomsday forecasts about climate change Wednesday,
saying "a sense of proportion" was needed.
A day after announcing a major aid package for drought-hit farmers,
Howard played down the link between climate change and the "Big Dry."
"Even the most pessimistic predictions about climate change, which I
don't necessarily share... don't say that it will never rain again in
rural Australia," Howard told Channel Nine television.
"We've just got to keep a sense of proportion."
The drought has stretched for seven years in some areas of Australia,
forcing some farmers to quit life on the land as their properties become
dustbowls.
The government on Tuesday doubled to 150,000 (129,000 US) dollars the
amount paid to farmers leaving the land to give them the chance to "exit
with dignity" and start a new life.
However, Howard said he doubted there would be an exodus of farmers and
said his conservative government was prepared to prop up rural Australia
because of its importance to the nation.
"Most people will stay on the land -- they love it," Howard said.
"We have to, as a nation, preserve a farm sector. It would be
unthinkable if we didn't have the bush in the future, if we lost our
rural community.
"Therefore we have a special obligation over and above the economic
value of farms."
Government drought assistance to farmers has reached about three billion
dollars since 2001, with more than a billion announced in the past week
as a national election looms before the end of the year.
The National Farmers Federation (NFF) last week called for greater
government action on climate change, saying agriculture was probably the
economic sector in Australia most exposed to the problem.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates agricultural production
was 37 billion dollars in the 2005/06 financial year.
But the government estimates the drought shaved 0.75 points from
Australia's economic growth in 2006, with the upcoming wheat harvest
expected to fall by a third and next year's grape crop tipped to halve.
Australian bushfire risk could rise 300 percent by 2050: report
Australian bushfires will become more intense due to climate change,
while the number of days each year when there is a high fire danger
could soar 300 percent by 2050, a report released Wednesday said.
The study, prepared by government scientists and the weather bureau for
the independent Climate Institute, noted that bushfires are an
inevitable feature of the Australian landscape.
But it warned they had already become more fierce in recent years, with
fire weather intensity rising 10 to 40 percent since the 1980s and 90s.
The report predicts that the intensity of bushfires in Australia will
jump by up to 30 percent by 2050 under the worst global warming scenarios.
And it adds that the number of days each year when there is an extreme
risk of fire could soar 65 percent by 2020 and up to 300 percent by 2050.
"The number of very high and extreme fire-weather days is projected to
increase in all scenarios," it said.
The largest changes are expected in the state of New South Wales where
Sydney is the capital, while the southern island state of Tasmania will
have the least.
The report also expands current fire risk ratings to include two more
unofficial fire danger levels -- "very extreme" and "catastrophic".
"Climate projections indicate very extreme and catastrophic fire danger
levels may become much more common," it said.
"With high global warming, "very extreme" days may occur twice as often
in Australia by 2020, with a four or five-fold increase predicted across
much of southern and eastern Australia by 2050."
The report also warned of an increase in the risk of injury and deaths,
a prolonged fire season and the destruction of ecosystems.
The Climate Institute, which works to raise awareness about climate
change, said unless rising pollution from the greenhouse gases blamed
for global warming was reversed, Australia's fire weather was set to
spiral dangerously upwards.
Firefighters said they were concerned there will be a marked increase in
the number of blazes which are uncontrollable.
"It reinforces our message that there will be times when no force known
to mankind can suppress these bushfires," chief officer with the South
Australian Country Fire Service, Euan Ferguson, told ABC radio.
Source: Agence France-Presse