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.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
RSS