Scotty From Marketing Insists No Link Between Climate, Fires; Wants Rewards For "Beating Targets"

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia’s government is sticking firmly to a position that there is no direct link between climate change and the country’s devastating bushfires, despite public anger, the anguish of victims and warnings from scientists. Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, say Australia does not need to cut carbon emissions more aggressively to limit global warming, even after a three-year drought and unprecedented bushfires.

Instead they say Australia, which contributes 1.3% of the world’s carbon emissions but is the second-largest emitter per capita behind the United States, should be rewarded for beating its emissions reduction targets for 2020. “When it comes to reducing global emissions, Australia must and is doing its bit, but bushfires are a time when communities must unite, not divide,” Taylor said in emailed comments to Reuters on Tuesday, while he was busy at bushfire relief centers in his constituency in New South Wales state.

Stepping up efforts to cut emissions would harm the economy, the government argues, especially if it hurt Australia’s exports of coal and gas. The country last year overtook Qatar as the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas. “In most countries it isn’t ­acceptable to pursue emission­reduction policies that add substantially to the cost of living, ­destroy jobs, reduce incomes and impede growth,” Taylor wrote in The Australian newspaper on Dec. 31.

EDIT

“One of the key drivers of fire intensity, fire spread rates and fire area is temperature. And in Australia we’ve just experienced record high temperatures,” said Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute at Australian National University. The burning forests are a double whammy for the environment, as they add to carbon emissions while also removing carbon sinks which will take decades to grow back, said David Holmes, director of the Monash University Climate Change Communication Research Hub. Australia’s bushfires since September have emitted about 350 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, equal to two-thirds the country’s annual emissions from man-made sources, estimated Pep Canadell, director of the Global Carbon Project, based on data from NASA satellites.

EDIT

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-bushfires-climatechange/australias-leaders-unmoved-on-climate-action-after-devastating-bushfires-idUSKBN1Z60IB