Kangaroo, koala, livestock carcasses strewn along highways like it really is the end of the world. Yet Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is heading the wrong way: Our view
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| A mural depicting Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Melbourne on Jan. 7, 2020. James Ross/epa-EFE |
That kind of lampooning has worn thin, given the relentless rise in global temperatures coupled, most recently, with hellish images of a fire-ravaged Australian continent: Skies cast in orange. The spectral image of the famed Sydney Opera House, lost behind smoke so thick that breathing is like inhaling a pack of cigarettes a day. A scorched region across Australia nearly the size of South Carolina.
Mountainous clouds of smoke extending 10 miles high that generate their own weather, triggering lightning without rain and on a course to circle the earth. Nearly 30 people dead since fires started in September; 2,000 homes destroyed.
Up to a billion animals dying
And the animals. A staggering estimate of up to a billion lost. Kangaroos, koalas, livestock. Carcasses strewn along highways like it really is the end of the world. The most searing and heart-wrenching disaster photograph shows the blackened, upright remains of a juvenile kangaroo, a joey, halted in flight by a fence, its arms still wrapped around the wire.
There's a warning in all of this about the direction of the planet.
No, climate change doesn't start wildfires. But its twin symptoms of persistent drought and hot weather create tinder-like conditions — particularly in southeast Australia with a climate not unlike that of California — and allow wildfires to rage out of control. Australia is in the third year of a punishing drought, and high temperature records were recently shattered with triple-digit heat.
Despite international commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement to curb the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, created in large part by the burning of fossil fuels, CO2 levels in earth's atmosphere are greater than at any time in human history and are continuing to rise.
The results have been made plain not just with more destructive wildfires but also stronger hurricanes, record floods and rising seas from melting ice caps. Last year was the world's second hottest on record.
Australia and USA ranked last
Greenhouse gas emission must be curbed in the next decade if there is any chance of preventing average global temperatures from rising above 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) beyond preindustrial levels, the Paris accord goal.
The independent Climate Change Performance Index ranks Australia and the United States dead last among nations on climate policy. The parallels are beyond troubling. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has scoffed at climate concerns by brandishing a lump of coal before Parliament and exhorting, "Don't be scared. Won't hurt you."
Australia is one of the world's leading exporters of coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels contributing to greenhouse gases, and Morrison seeks to increase exports. While he hasn't gone so far as characterizing climate change as a hoax, as President Donald Trump has done, both administrations were blamed for stalling international negotiations last month in Madrid aimed at advancing worldwide emission-reduction goals.
Morrison's approval ratings are tanking as Australia burns. He was ridiculed for flashing a thumbs up from a beach in Hawaii as the fires grew in December. Demonstrations in Australia for climate justice are on the rise.
Earth is growing warmer, and there's no stopping that reality. But Americans, like their counterparts Down Under, can demand that their leaders heed the lessons of a burning continent and take the hard steps necessary to prevent even worse from happening.
The Australian Embassy in Washington declined to provide an opposing view to this editorial.
Links
- OTHER VIEWS: Australia's fires cannot be linked to just any individual emissions policy
- The Heat Is On: Australia's Greenhouse Future
- Australia fires: The numbers that highlight sheer scale of unfolding catastrophe
- More voters think Australia not doing enough on climate, Guardian Essential poll shows
- How Climate Change Is Affecting Australia's Fires
- (AU) The World Has Made The Link Between Australian Coal, Fires And Climate
- (AU) Foreign Media Rips Into Australia Over Causes Behind Bushfire Crisis
- (NYT) As Fires Rage, Australia Sees Its Leader as Missing in Action
- (AU) Morrison's Government On The Bushfires: From Attacking Climate 'Lunatics' To Calling In The Troops
- (AU) Dirty Power: An Australian Political Investigation
- (AU) Richard Flanagan: Aloha, Little Scotty From Marketing, Is It Resurrection You’re Looking For?
- (AU) Why Australia’s Prime Minister Just Defended Coal, Even Though The Country Is ‘On Fire’ And Voters Fear Climate Change
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