Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The United Firefighters Union of Australia (UFU) has called on the Federal Government to take urgent action on climate change to avoid the risk of disasters on the scale of the Victoria fires occurring almost every year. "Given the Federal Government's dismal five per cent greenhouse gas emissions cuts, the science suggests we are well on the way to guaranteeing that somewhere in the country there will be an almost annual repeat of the recent disaster and more frequent extreme weather events," UFU general secretary Peter Marshall wrote in an open letter to prime minister Kevin Rudd.

With the death toll standing at 181, the Victoria fires have been described as Australia's worst natural disaster. Under a high global warming scenario, conditions conducive to widespread fire could occur on a near-annual basis by the middle of the century. Even under a low global warming scenario, catastrophic fires are expected to occur in the region every five to seven years by the year 2020. "Scientists are advising that no matter what we do, a 'low global warming' scenario is almost inevitable, and so we must be making fire plans accordingly," Marshall wrote. Survivors are demanding more effective warning systems. "I'd like to see a better fire system, a better warning system, alarms or big sirens that they do in the bigger towns so that when there is a fire people can hear the siren and know that there's trouble and get out," said Helen Clover from Kinglake.

Mayors from over 350 European cities, including London, Paris and Madrid, have pledged to cut carbon emissions by more than 20 per cent by the year 2020. The agreement goes beyond the current European Union (EU) commitment. Gabor Demszky, mayor of Budapest, reckons the agreement "can actually become the new driving force behind the new European climate policy." Hamburg plans to reduce emissions by 40 per cent by 2020.

"Voluntary actions by citizens are crucial, changing our energy behavior, making intelligent investments, adopting smart mobility practices, these are actions that need to be motivated," said EU president José Manuel Barroso. The European Commission has, however, been heavily criticized for withdrawing financial support for the initiative.

A shift in the rainfall distribution may force the Amazonian rainforest to evolve into seasonal forest cover, according to a new analysis of climate model projections. The researchers corrected the tendency of the climate models to underestimate rainfall in the Amazonian region. Previous studies had suggested that a projected substantial decrease in rainfall might lead to replacement by savannah. The latest results, however, indicate that there might still be sufficient rainfall to support a modified forest cover. Forest dieback cannot, however, be excluded.

"Forest cover will help Eastern Amazonia adapt to climate change by helping maintain local rainfall in the dry season, limiting the spread of fires and stopping surface temperatures rising too high. This will help people living in the local towns as well as the forests themselves," commented lead author Yadvinder Malhi from Oxford University. Governments need to manage forests better, he said, but "the fundamental way to minimize the risk of Amazon dieback is to control greenhouse gas emissions globally, particularly from fossil fuel combustion in the developed world and Asia." he said.