So you and we have been captivated by the horrific scenes of fire in Australia
and you've been asking us lots of questions about them.
Well, this is the worst bushfire season that Australia has ever experienced.
These fires are more devastating more catastrophic than anything we've
seen in Australia before some of the, some of the numbers
as they stand now,
it looks as though something in the region of 10 point 7 million hectares of land in Australia
has been affected, has been burned by these fires. To put that into context that's about a
third of the whole of the United Kingdom. The smoke from these fires is currently covering an area
almost the size of the hole of Mainland Europe.
It's absolutely huge and the affects of course are horrific, people have lost their
lives in these fires. Thousands of people's homes have been lost, tens of thousands
of people are having their day-to-day lives
and their livelihoods affected by the impacts of these fires. And really shockingly,
only something like, it's estimated
that one and a quarter billion animals, mammals, reptiles, birds have
lost their lives in these fires either directly,
or indirectly. Directly because they've been caught in the
fire and have been burnt to death
or indirectly because those left behind they no longer have water
and shelter, protection from predators.
And so they're unable to survive either.
Of course there are their iconic Australian species affected by these fires; kangaroos, wallabies,
kookaburras. And of course koalas have been featuring a lot in the news.
The koalas are already
as a species, rated as being vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN
and actually most of the koalas in the east coast area of Australia
they live in an area known
as the Koala triangle, and it's already estimated that they
could be extinct in this region within 30 years.
And obviously these devastating fires are just making the threat of that extinction
crisis worse and worse.
So one of the obvious questions is ‘but aren't bushfires normal?’
And also ‘what role does climate change play in all of this?’
Well, I mean the answer is yes bushfires are normal
and Australia does like lots of countries experience bush fires every year,
but the difference is that these are more intense, more extreme than they have ever been before
and that is where climate change comes in.
That's where the climate crisis plays its
role because climate change is what's known as a threat multiplier.
So where something bad is happening, the effect of climate change is to make it worse
and worse so wildfires, as with extreme weather like storms
hurricanes, heat waves, climate change makes it more intense
and more frequent and therefore it has a much worse impact when it happens.
Australia has warmed by about 1 degree centigrade over the last
century, that's in line with the global average.
But of course, we know Australia is already a hot country.
So warming by degree centigrade is a big deal.
And in fact Australia in 2019 had its hottest and driest year on record.
It was reckoned to be about one
and a half degrees Centigrade over the average of the period between about 1960
and 1990, a big leap in temperature.
And the effect of that is to provide
drier ground, warmer air, and dryer foliage and trees which of course provide fuel for fire.
So all of this is a perfect set of conditions that enable able these fires to start burning
and then to burn really intensely
and what's more the emissions that come from that fire are adding to the problem itself
as well, it's estimated that in the first in the few months of
the fire, Australia has emitted about
two-thirds of the normal emissions that it would emit during a year anyway,
and that's on top of course of the normal emissions that is going to
carry on emitting during the course of the year.
So this is made worse by the climate crisis
and it is helping to fuel the climate crisis, and let's be clear
We as humans are causing this.
It's the emissions that we are causing through burning fossil fuels, oil, coal
and gas in order to power our lives, to heat our homes, to fuel our cars, to fuel our planes.
We are emitting all of these greenhouse gases which are going into the atmosphere
and they're causing the planet to heat
up, and it's that that is causing the climate
crisis and it is that is causing the conditions
for these much more intense extreme weather conditions and extreme fire conditions.
What about nature in all of this? I mean, we are making this worse by
what we're doing to nature, as well nature is part of the solution to the climate crisis.
And actually we are cutting a swathe through it.
So in order to fuel our food system,
for example, we are cutting down forests at a phenomenal rate at a
rate of one football pitch every minute to make space
for our livestock and to make space to grow food for our livestock, and when we cut those trees down,
we lose a means of storing some of the carbons that we emit in the trees
and in the soil that they grow in
so we not only lose that
and then put it into the atmosphere
when it burns, as it is has done in the Amazon, and it is doing at the moment in Australia,
but we also no longer have those systems to capture that
carbon for us. So part of this needs to be about restoring nature as well.
And what we need to be clear about is that this is no longer a sign of things to come in the future.
This is happening. Now. We're seeing this happening now in Australia,
but most importantly the most important thing we can take away from this is
that we still have time to do something about this.
We know what we need to do. We know that we need to act
and we know how we need to act, we have most of the tools that we need most of the
solutions that we need to tackle this problem.
Renewable energy to power our homes and to heat and cool our homes.
We need fewer cars on the road, and we need to power those cars through clean electricity.
We need to fly less. We need to eat less meat, rely less on the
meat that is causing that deforestation.
We know all of this and this is why the world's leaders committed just five years ago
in 2015 in Paris to acting to keeping temperatures to
1 and 1/2 degrees to helping us,
and all of nature and wildlife survive on this planet,
and we're just not acting fast enough to make sure that we live up to those promises that were made.
So you've been asking how can you help? Well firstly lots of you are already
and lots of you have been contributing money and thank you immensely for that.
Where does that money go? WWF Australia is working to try and tackle the immediate crisis.
They're working with lots of organizations on the ground
locally to respond to the immediate crisis to try
and help wildlife in crisis, then to try and work to restore
the habitats that those wildlife urgently need to survive immediately after the fires
and then they will be working
as well all the way through to continue to raise their voice
and demand action of governments, both to deal with the immediate problem of the
fires and to tackle the emissions that cause the climate crisis
that helped make this problem much much worse.
So thank you very much for donating to them. Please continue to noting WWF Australia
and rest assured that they will they will keep reviewing where that money is best needed.
And making sure that your money gets to where it is needed
when it is needed. But don't forget the other things the other ways
that you can help with this wider problem with
the wider climate crisis, firstly by raising your voice, never let politicians
and businesses not know that you care about this, never let them forget how important this is to you
and let them know that you demand that they take action in terms of politicians,
that's the big picture around the action that we need to take here in the UK to cut emissions.
From our electricity system, from a transport system, from our food system,
but also remind them that they need to step up
and be leaders at the end of this year at that crucial climate meeting in Glasgow in November.
There are lots of ways that we can help cut emissions in our own day-to-day lives as well.
Of course, we can fly less, we can drive less, we can eat less meat, we can switch our
energy provider to a renewable provider instead of fossil fuels. There are lots of
things that we can do in our day-to-day lives.
We can influence our friends and families to encourage them to do it as well.
All of this contributes, all of this is part of that overall
emissions picture that's fueling the climate crisis.
So, please don't forget to take those actions. If you want to find out more about the emergency
and about the actions to tackle it, then continue to look on our website if you
want to get lots of information about what's happened
so far and what the political reaction has been and what the climate experts are saying.
There's an excellent website called Carbon Brief that has done a really detailed analysis of this
but again,
Our colleagues in WWF Australia are closest to
this, and their website has lots of information and the links are at the bottom of this page.
So go there to find out more information. Also go there if you
want to contribute to help WWF Australia
in taking that action to tackle the problem
and to protect wildlife when these fires abate, and thank you very much for caring about this.
Thank you for raising your voice, and thank you for contributing to help us to tackle this.