Firefighters were battling scores of wildfires raging in Australia yesterday, as a government commission warned that climate change had raised the risk of scorching heat waves becoming more frequent.
In the eastern state of New South Wales, some 1,000 firefighters were attempting to douse about 94 wildfires, about dozen uncontained, while fires were also burning in neighboring Victoria and Queensland states.
No deaths have been reported from the bushfires, which have flared during extreme summer temperatures, but the unprecedented heatwave has prompted the government’s Climate Commission to issue a new report on the weather event.
It says that climate change has contributed to making the extreme heat conditions — in which record-breaking temperatures in parts of the country have topped 45ºC — and bushfires worse.
“The length, extent and severity of the current heatwave are unprecedented in the measurement record,” the report Off the Charts: Extreme Australian summer heat said. “Although Australia has always had heatwaves, hot days and bushfires, climate change is increasing the risk of more frequent and longer heatwaves and more extreme hot days, as well as exacerbating bushfire conditions”
It says while many factors influence the potential for bushfires, so called “fire weather” is highly sensitive to changes in climatic conditions. Hotter temperatures, longer heatwaves, high winds and drier soils and grasses can all dramatically exacerbate fire conditions.
One of the report’s authors, David Karoly, said there was clear evidence of an increasing trend in hot extremes in Australia, where the current heatwave has affected more than 70 percent of the vast continent nation.
Karoly said the heatwave, which began last month, saw the average maximum daily temperature across the whole of Australia hit 40.3ºC on Monday, breaking a record of 40.17ºC which had stood since 1972.
“That’s an amazing temperature,” he told reporters. “No cool areas offsetting the record heat.”
Karoly said there was likely to be an increased frequency of hot extremes, more hot days, more heat waves and more extreme bush fire days during Australian summers in the future.
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann launched a broadside on Friday at British Prime Minister David Cameron, accusing him of sending mixed messages when it comes to the EU.
What Cameron said depended on whether he was addressing the British people or a meeting in Brussels, Faymann told yesterday’s edition of Austria’s daily newspaper Standard.
Such an attitude undermined his trust in the British leader, said Faymann, a Social Democrat.
Cameron, under pressure from the euroskeptic wing of his Conservative party and from opinion polls suggesting growing hostility to the EU in Britain, has stepped up his criticism of the bloc.
He is due to give a long-awaited speech later this month, in which he is expected to offer a referendum after general elections in 2015 on taking back powers from the 27-member bloc.
Cameron got a generally positive reception from the British press after taking a tough stance during budget talks at November last year’s EU summit.
Last month, EU President Herman Van Rompuy warned that Cameron’s bid to win back powers from the EU threatened to undermine the single market.
This week, a US official expressed concern about Britain’s plans. US Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Philip Gordon warned that every hour spent arguing over the EU’s structures, was “one hour less spent on how to deal with the common issues of jobs, growth and international peace around the world.”
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS