Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday denied that his climate policies had caused unprecedented bushfires ravaging the country and insisted that his government was doing enough to tackle global warming.
As dozens of new blazes scorched the countryside and the country’s largest city was cloaked in hazardous smoke, Morrison defended his climate record, saying that 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 emergency services as unprecedented in number and scale for the early bushfire season.
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.
“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 Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
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 and unseasonably hot, dry and windy conditions have fueled the unprecedented blazes.
Scientists have said that many of those factors are made worse by rising global temperatures.
Bushfires yesterday burned across every region of Australia, with residents in Victoria state warned to leave high-risk areas and officials in New South Wales state reporting more than 600 homes have been destroyed in the past few 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 the past.
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