Australian PM denies climate link as smoke chokes Sydney

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SYDNEY, Nov 21, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Australia’s Prime Minister on Thursday
denied his climate policies had caused unprecedented bushfires ravaging the
country and insisted his government was doing enough to tackle global
warming.

As blazes that have scorched swathes of countryside continued to spread and
the country’s largest city was cloaked in hazardous smoke, conservative
leader Scott Morrison defended his climate record, saying Australia was
“doing our bit”.

His comments came after weeks spent refusing to speak about the link
between climate change and deadly fires described by the emergency services
as unprecedented in number and scale for the early bushfire season.

“The suggestion that any way shape or form that Australia — accounting for
1.3 percent of the world’s emissions… are impacting directly on specific
fire events, whether it is here or anywhere else in the world, that doesn’t
bear up to credible scientific evidence,” he told ABC radio.

As more people in the southeast of the country were told to evacuate their
homes and schoolchildren in Sydney were again forced to play indoors,
Morrison dismissed mounting calls for action.

Australia, he said, was “doing our bit as part of the response to climate
change” and sought to frame the issue as a global concern.

Scientists, former fire chiefs and residents touched by bushfires have all
drawn the link between this season’s more intense fires and climate change.

Drought, unseasonably hot, dry and windy conditions have fuelled the
unprecedented blazes. Scientists believe many of those factors are made worse
by rising global temperatures.

On Thursday bushfires burned across every region of Australia with
residents in Victoria warned to leave high-risk areas and officials in New
South Wales reporting more than 600 homes have been destroyed in recent
weeks.

Morrison is facing calls to cut greenhouse gas emissions and rapidly
transition to renewable energy — a sensitive debate in light of Australia’s
lucrative mining industry.

Australia has committed to globally agreed climate targets to help limit
warming, but its emissions continue to rise and targets are only being met
with the use of some creative carbon accounting — using credits gained in
past decades.

While Australia’s burning of fossil fuels accounts for only a fraction of
global emissions, coal dug up Down Under and burned around the world makes
the country a major emissions exporter.

– ‘Code red’ –

Devastating fires along the country’s east coast have claimed six lives
since mid-October.

Now the fire danger has moved into states further south, with a so-called
“Code Red” — the highest possible fire risk in Victoria — being declared in
the state’s northwest for the first time in a decade.

“What that means is that if we see fires in those areas they will be fast-
moving, they will be unpredictable, they will be uncontrollable,” emergency
management commissioner Andrew Crisp said.

Country Fire Authority chief Steve Warrington told people living in rural
areas to leave for the safety of cities.

“We are saying, ‘do not be there, do not be there when a fire occurs,
because you will not survive if you are there’,” he said. “There is a good
chance if a fire occurs that your home will be destroyed.”

The fire danger was also elevated to “severe” in the island state of
Tasmania off mainland Australia’s southeastern coast, where a total fire ban
was declared.

For the second time in three days, smoke from bushfires blanketed Sydney,
Australia’s biggest city and an area that is home to more than five million
people, sending air quality plummeting to hazardous levels.

In South Australia, the state capital Adelaide was also shrouded in
bushfire smoke and residents were being told to stay indoors for health
reasons.

More than 110 fires are still burning in worst-hit New South Wales and
neighbouring Queensland, while in South Australia more than 40 fires broke
out during catastrophic fire conditions Wednesday.

The country is bracing for challenging fire conditions to continue
throughout the Southern Hemisphere summer.