Australia suffers the climate crisis that its leaders deny

One of the main culprits behind last month’s climate summit in Madrid closing without a concrete agreement on carbon markets was Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the liberal Scott Morrison: the first sword of the powerful coal lobby.

International analysts point to this climate denier, who comes to parliament debates brandishing a piece of coal to the cry of “this is the future of Australia”, as one of the main responsible for the fact that Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which regulates international carbon markets, remains without a legal framework that takes it out of limbo.

Australia leads, along with the United States, Japan and Brazil, the group of countries opposed to promoting climate action to contain global warming below 2 ºC and avoid the worst scenarios to which it leads us. Scenarios that since the first report of the IPCC (1990) include the significant increase in megafires in Australia.

According to the experts who investigate the causes of the large fires that have devastated much of the country in recent weeks, beyond having an intentional origin or not (there are already a hundred detainees), there is no doubt that the main reason why the fires are being much worse this year is the combination of a long and severe drought and an increase in temperatures to reach record levels: above 50 ºC in large areas of the country.

The models developed by climatologists who follow the evolution of the climate crisis have been predicting for three decades the graphs that These days show the Australian news services.

Their reports noted that if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continued to rise unchecked, Australia would face worst-case scenarios. And their forecasts have been fulfilled. The area affected by the fire during the summer fires in recent decades had been around 300,000 hectares. In these last two weeks, more than six million hectares have burned.

No one doubts that the great fires in Australia, such as those that devastated large regions of the Amazon, Chile or California a few months ago, correspond to what experts call “megafires”: a new generation of forest fires that, encouraged by climate change, are increasingly virulent and manifest themselves with increasing capacity for destruction.

Beyond their origin, whether or not they have been caused by recklessness or intentional action, the flames of climatic fires spread faster, with more power, manage to reach fronts of tens of kilometers and are impossible to extinguish with the methods and knowledge that we have been using so far.

Pointed out on social networks by Greta Thunberg, and booed by citizens on his visit to the places affected by the flames for their lack of foresight, their climate relativism and their irresponsible vacation trip to Hawaii in the middle of the crisis, Scott Morrison himself has recognized the relationship between the fires and the climate crisis. A crisis that the Australian government should begin to combat by promoting renewable energies against coal.

Australia must take good note of what has happened these days and cannot take another minute to join the group of countries that, under the leadership of the UN and with the EU at the forefront, are committed to greater international cooperation in the face of the greatest challenge facing humanity.

Source: The Vanguard