12/09/2019

Climate Change Is Bringing A New World Of Bushfires

The Conversation - 

Fires are burning across Queensland and New South Wales. AAP Image/Dan Peled
Spring has barely arrived, and bushfires are burning across Australia’s eastern seaboard. More than 50 fires are currently burning in New South Wales, and some 15,000 hectares have burned in Queensland since late last week.
It’s the first time Australia has seen such strong fires this early in the bushfire season. While fire is a normal part of Australia’s yearly cycle and no two years are alike, what we are seeing now is absolutely not business as usual.
And although these bushfires are not directly attributable to climate change, our rapidly warming climate, driven by human activities, is exacerbating every risk factor for more frequent and intense bushfires.
The basics of a bushfire
For some bushfire 101, a bushfire is “an uncontrolled, non-structural fire burning in grass, scrub, bush or forest”. This means the fire is in vegetation, not a building (non-structural), and raging across the landscape – hence, uncontrolled.
For a bushfire to get started, several things need to come together. You need fuel, low humidity (which also often means the fuel itself has a low moisture content and is easier to burn), and oxygen. It also helps to have an unusually high ambient temperature and winds to drive the fire forward.
In Australia, we divide bushfires into two types based on the shape and elevation of the landscape.
First are flat grassland bushfires. These are generally fast-moving, fanned by winds blowing across flattish open landscapes, and burn through an area in 5–10 seconds and may smoulder for a few minutes. They usually have low to medium intensity and can damage to crops, livestock and buildings. These fires are easy to map and fight due to relatively straightforward access.
Second are hilly or mountainous bushfires. These fires are slower-moving but much more intense, with higher temperatures. As they usually occur in forested, mountainous areas, they also have more dead vegetation to burn and are harder to access and fight.
They burn slowly, passing through an area in 2-5 minutes and can smoulder for days. Fires in upper tree canopies move very fast. Mountainous bushfires actually speed up as they burn up a slope (since they heat and dry out the vegetation and atmosphere in front of the fire, causing a runaway process of accelerating fire movement).
About 70 blazes are still burning across Queensland. AAP Image/Dan Peled
Climate change and bushfire risk
To be clear, as previously reported, the current bushfires are not specifically triggered by climate change.
However, as bushfire risk is highest in warm to hot, dry conditions with low humidity, low soil and fuel load moisture (and are usually worse during El Niño situations) – all factors that climate change in Australia affects – climate change is increasing the risk of more frequent and intense bushfires.
Widespread drought conditions, very low humidity, higher than average temperatures in many places, and strong westerly winds driven by a negative Southern Annular Mode (all made worse by human-induced climate change) have collided right now over large areas of the eastern seaboard, triggering extremely unusual bushfire conditions – certainly catching many communities unawares before the start of the official bushfire season.
Different regions of Australia have traditionally experienced peak bushfire weather at different times. This has meant that individual households, communities and the emergency services have had specific periods of the year to prepare. These patterns now seem to be breaking down, and bushfires are happening outside these regular places and times.
Map of bushfire seasons. Bureau of Meteorology
New challenges for the emergency services
While experts recently forecast a worse-than-average coming bushfire season, the current emergency has essentially exploded out of nowhere.
Many Australian communities do know how to prepare but there is always some apathy at the start of bushfire season around getting households and communities bushfire-ready. When it’s still relatively cold and feeling like the last whisps of winter are still affecting us, bushfire preparation seems very far off.
Compounding our worsening bushfire conditions, we are increasingly building in bushfire-prone areas, exposing people and homes to fire. This tips the scales of risk further in favour of catastrophic losses. Sadly too, these risks always disproportionately affect the most vulnerable.
With such extensive fires over wide areas, the current emergency points to an extremely frightening future possibility: that emergency services become more and more stretched, responding to fires, floods, storms, tropic cyclones and a myriad other natural hazards earlier in each hazard season, increasingly overlapping.
Our emergency services do an amazing job but their resources and the energy of their staff and volunteers can only go so far.
Regularly the emergency services of one area or state are deployed to other areas to help respond to emergencies.
But inevitably, we will see large-scale disasters occurring simultaneously in multiple territories, making it impossible to share resources. Our emergency management workforce report they are already stressed and overworked, and losing the capacity to share resources will only exacerbate this.
Immediate challenges will be to continue funding emergency management agencies across the nation, ensuring the workforce has the necessary training and experience to plan and respond to a range of complex emergencies, and making sure local communities are involved in actively planning for emergencies.

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World 'Gravely' Unprepared For Effects Of Climate Crisis – Report

The Guardian - 

Trillions of dollars needed to avoid ‘climate apartheid’ but this is less than cost of inaction
Massive wildfires such as those in Bolivia have been mentioned as evidence that the climate crisis is here. Photograph: David Mercado/Reuters
The world’s readiness for the inevitable effects of the climate crisis is “gravely insufficient”, according to a report from global leaders.
This lack of preparedness will result in poverty, water shortages and levels of migration soaring, with an “irrefutable toll on human life”, the report warns.
Trillion-dollar investment is needed to avert “climate apartheid”, where the rich escape the effects and the poor do not, but this investment is far smaller than the eventual cost of doing nothing.
The study says the greatest obstacle is not money but a lack of “political leadership that shakes people out of their collective slumber”. A “revolution” is needed in how the dangers of global heating are understood and planned for, and solutions are funded.
The report has been produced by the Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA), convened by 18 nations including the UK. It has contributions from the former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, the Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, environment ministers from China, India and Canada, the heads of the World Bank and the UN climate and environment divisions, and others.
Among the most urgent actions recommended are early-warning systems of impending disasters, developing crops that can withstand droughts and restoring mangrove swamps to protect coastlines, while other measures include painting roofs of homes white to reduce heatwave temperatures.
In the foreword to the report, Ban, Gates and Kristalina Georgieva, the World Bank chief executive, write: “The climate crisis is here, now: massive wildfires ravage fragile habitats, city taps run dry, droughts scorch the land and massive floods destroy people’s homes and livelihoods. So far the response has been gravely insufficient.”
Ban said: “I am really concerned about the lack of vision of political leaders. They are much more interested in getting elected and re-elected, and climate issues are not in their priorities. We are seeing this in the US with President Trump.”
The report says severe effects are now inevitable and estimates that unless precautions are taken, 100 million more people could be driven into poverty by 2030. It says the number of people short of water each year will jump by 1.4 billion to 5 billion, causing unprecedented competition for water, fuelling conflict and migration. On the coasts, rising sea levels and storms will drive hundreds of millions from their homes, with costs of $1tn (£810bn) a year by 2050.
Patrick Verkooijen, the chief executive of the Global Center on Adaptation, said: “What we truly see is the risk of a climate apartheid, where the wealthy pay to escape and the rest are left to suffer. That is a very profound moral injustice.”
But the moral imperative alone will not drive change, he said, and the report also makes an economic case.
“It is a nation’s self-interest to invest in adaptation,” Verkooijen said. The report estimates spending $1.8tn by 2030 in five key areas could yield $7.1tn in net benefits, by avoiding damages and increasing economic growth.
The chair of the UK’s Environment Agency, Emma Howard Boyd, is a member of the GCA. The agency has warned England could run short of water within 25 years and increased coastal and river flooding may force some towns to be abandoned.
Children paddle a raft through waters in Jakarta, Indonesia, where sea levels are rapidly rising. Photograph: Ed Wray/Getty Images 
In July, the UK government’s official advisers said they were shocked at the lack of proper plans to protect people from the effects of the climate crisis.
Bob Ward, the policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said: “As one of the governments that commissioned this important GCA report, the UK must heed its conclusions about the large economic benefits from adapting to those impacts of climate change that cannot now be avoided.
“This summer has shown that the UK is not adapted to the changing climate of this century, with heavier rainfall and more frequent and intense heatwaves. Successive environment ministers have failed to give this issue the attention it needs, leading to greater damage to lives and livelihoods.”
Cutting carbon emissions is vital, says the GCA report, but this has received nearly 20 times more funding than adaptation in recent years. Climate effects must be factored into decisions by those who make choices about the future, it says, such as business leaders. Verkooijen said nations should follow France in making it compulsory for large companies to report the climate risks to their businesses.

 Coping with the climate storm
The GCA report focuses on several areas of adaptation:
  • Early warning systems: Just 24 hours’ warning of a coming storm or heatwave can cut the ensuing damage by 30%, saving lives and protecting assets worth at least 10 times the cost of the alert system. In Bangladesh, such systems, plus shelters and coastal protection, have already saved hundreds of thousands of lives since the Bhola cyclone in 1970 killed at least 300,000 people.
  • Climate-ready infrastructure: Such measures can add 3% to the upfront costs but save $4 for every $1 spent. Flood protection is key and Shanghai, and other Chinese “sponge cities” are deploying porous pavements, rooftop gardens and trees in parks to soak up water from downpours. Relatively simple measures can also be effective, such as painting roofs with reflective white paint. In the Indian city of Ahmedabad, this has cut temperatures in the rooms below by 5C.
  • Mangrove protection: These coastal forests buffer storms, protecting 18 million people and preventing $80bn a year in flood damage. They also provide nurseries for fish and tourist attractions worth billions. But construction, pollution and global heating have destroyed many mangrove forests, from Australia to Mexico. The GCA says the benefits of mangrove preservation and restoration are up to 10 times the cost.
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The Country's Top Bureaucrats Say Government Appears Unprepared For Climate Change

ABC Investigations Exclusive - Michael Slezak | FOI Editor Michael McKinnon

The public has increasingly demanded the Government do more to tackle climate change. (ABC News: Taryn Southcombe)
Key points
  • The Secretaries Group on Climate Risk includes some of the country's most senior military figures and the heads of the Federal Government's biggest departments
  • The minutes from the group's meetings noted extreme weather was already "overwhelming" the country's ability to respond to climatic events
  • The group also considered legal risks that climate change could pose for the Government
The most powerful bureaucrats in Australia have been wargaming to prepare the country for "national-scale systemic climate risks" that could impact "the full spectrum of human activity" and are already "overwhelming" the country's ability to respond.
The ABC can reveal a group called "the Secretaries Group on Climate Risk" began meeting in March 2017.
It includes some of the country's most senior military figures as well as the heads of the federal government's biggest departments.
The group has not been formally disbanded, but fell into dormancy. But before that, the group warned the government it was widely seen as trailing the private sector in addressing the impacts of climate change.
The group conducted a set of exercises called "Project Climate Ready", in which the government chiefs wargamed future scenarios that it is expected could occur because of climate change.
Despite the group planning several meetings throughout 2018, it has not met since March of that year.
A meeting planned for July 2018 never occurred, and no meeting has been arranged since, documents obtained by the ABC under Freedom of Information laws show.
A spokesperson for the Department of Environment confirmed there were no plans for another meeting.
Climate change and the ADF
Australia's Defence Department has spelled out clearly to a Senate inquiry that climate change will create "concurrency pressures" for the Defence Force as a rise in disaster relief operations continues. 
The spokesperson said the work of the Secretaries Group was now being done by a more junior deputy secretary-led group, called the "Disaster and Climate Resilience Reference Group".
That group existed prior to the Secretaries Group's first meeting, and was described in the FOI documents as "supporting" and "reporting to" the Secretaries Group's work.
Minutes and agendas for the group's meetings show the seriousness with which the federal bureaucracy treated the threat of climate change during a period when then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull failed to win support in his own party for an emissions-reduction mechanism in the electricity sector.
In establishing the group, the documents note that climate change "influences the full spectrum of human activity".
The minutes from the meetings noted extreme weather was already "overwhelming" the country's ability to respond to climatic events. As examples, they noted:
Political storm erupts after SA loses power. (Lateline)

Project: Climate Ready
Project Climate Ready was conducted to better understand how to manage the increasing risk of catastrophic events.
It consisted of a series of scenarios jointly developed by the Department of Defence and the Department of Environment and Energy.
Babies born today will be 22 when warming hits 1.5C. What will life be like?
The details of the scenarios have been kept secret, with the government refusing to release them to the ABC under Freedom of Information laws.
But in commissioning them, the group said they "could include modelling a spring at 10 degrees (Celsius) above average" and "relate to concurrent extreme weather events, legal liability, national security or health".
They said the exercise would involve planning for the scenario over a period of "15 to 20 years".
The group noted Project Climate Ready should help the government "identify actions and prompt discussion on what decisions need to be taken to build resilience to climate change, by who, and when."

Government warned on litigation risks
In addition to direct physical risks impacting health and national security, the group also considered legal risks that climate change could pose for the government.
To prepare for the meetings, the heads of the departments were given legal advice by Noel Hutley SC outlining how company directors and trustees of superannuation funds who fail to consider climate risks could be sued, as well as news articles about ongoing climate change-related litigation.
Josh Frydenberg was environment minister when the Secretaries Group on Climate Risk began. (ABC News: Luke Stephenson)
"The intention was to understand what challenges could be presented by such events, in order to inform policy and program design and thinking," a spokesperson for the environment department said.
"Scenarios explored some of the possible impacts of extreme weather events in a number of sectors including health, infrastructure and energy."
In a brief to the then-environment minister Josh Frydenberg in 2017, outlining what the group had found, the secretary of the department of environment said "there is a broad-based perception that the public sector is behind private-sector practice".
Australian cities are declaring a 'climate emergency'. What does that actually mean?
"Many private-sector companies, including resource companies … are well advanced in their management of climate risk," the brief said.
"Public sector agencies own and manage large assets, employ staff in locations and provide or support services that are at risk of extreme weather events, which are becoming greater because of climate change."
The ABC contacted the offices of Environment Minister Sussan Ley, as well as former environment minister and now Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
Minister for Drought and Natural Disasters David Littleproud, who has said he "[doesn't] know if climate change is manmade", was also asked to comment.
A spokesperson for the Department of Environment said the work of the Secretaries Group was being progressed by the deputy secretary group.
"For example, during 2018-19 the Group discussed development of the recently released National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework.
"The Group also supported development of Climate Compass, which is a framework for climate risk management for Commonwealth agencies developed by CSIRO and the Department of the Environment and Energy," the spokesperson said.

Australia 'probably more prone to disasters'
Professor Andy Pitman says climate change needs to be taken seriously because the consequences "are here now". (Supplied: Twitter)
Professor Andy Pitman, head of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said wargaming future scenarios was exactly what the public service should be doing.
"Climate change is really, in the context of the government, simply a risk. And risks should always be thoroughly examined," Professor Pitman said.
"The consequences of climate change are here now and are not something to be thought of as just in the future. But obviously with the emissions trajectories as they are it's inevitable that risks will continue."
He said he was not particularly worried whether this group or some other group was carrying on that work.
"What would concern me is if the scenario-planning — the stress-testing — isn't being done in government."
Former deputy commissioner of the NSW Fire Brigade Ken Thompson is more concerned.
"It does worry me because there's a lot of work that needs to be done in this space," Mr Thompson said.
"The problem with Australia is that we're probably more prone to these disasters than many other countries but we're probably one of the least-prepared simply because we don't have this overarching government framework that's needed to help us plan," he said.
Dr Sarah Boulter, a senior researcher at the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, said a high-level group needs to be looking at climate risk at a whole-of government level.
She said both the impacts of climate change — and potential adaptations — have consequences that cut across government departments.
"So if one department says, 'look, the only way that we can protect this part of the coast is to build a seawall' — that will have implications for biodiversity, for fisheries, for transport."

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