The bushfire emergency has transformed understanding of the facts relating to climate change and its impact on weather events. What was hypothetical has become personal.
People living in rural and remote areas of Australia have always felt the brunt of extreme weather events such as bushfires, cyclones and floods. Therefore increases in the frequency and intensity of adverse weather events have, until now, constituted rural issues. It has been difficult to have them treated as ongoing top national priorities.
But suddenly understanding about them has become national because of the spatial and temporal extent of the emergency. Also, some of the impacts, such as smoke haze, have been experienced directly by people in the cities for an extended period.
At 3.00pm on 8 February 1983 about 1,000 tonnes of Mallee topsoil were dumped on Melbourne. It was reported that “city workers huddled in doorways, covering their mouths from the choking dust, and traffic came to a standstill”. The worst of the dust storm was over by 4:00pm, when the wind speed dropped.
For a few days the significance of drought and the conditions that caused it were no doubt a topic of conversation in Melbourne. Tragically the exact weather pattern that had caused the dust storm in the city that day was repeated one week later, when the Ash Wednesday fires caused enormous destruction. In Victoria and South Australia 75 people died, including 17 fire-fighters.
"Australia’s weather and climate continues to change in response to a warming global climate. Australia has warmed by just over 1°C since 1910, with most warming since 1950. This warming has seen an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events and increased the severity of drought conditions during periods of below-average rainfall. Eight of Australia’s top ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2005." [1]
"- - very high monthly maximum temperatures that occurred around 2 per cent of the time in the past (1951–1980) now occur around 12 per cent of the time (2003–2017). Very warm monthly minimum, or night-time, temperatures that occurred around 2 per cent of the time in the past (1951–1980) now also occur around 12 per cent of the time (2003–2017). This upward shift in the distributions of temperature has occurred across all seasons, with the largest change in spring."
One of the underlying causes of the current bushfire emergency has been the long-term and extensive drought. Once the immediate recovery of people, their communities and their businesses is in full train, it will be essential to return to consideration of policies relating to the management of water and drought, and the management of land and agriculture.
These are very complex policy areas as illustrated, for example, by the unavoidable conflicts in water policy between state and territory jurisdictions, between economic, domestic (household) and environmental purposes, and between individual end-users.
Because of long-term basin-wide rainfall shortages, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the result of a huge amount of expertise, negotiation, good will and compromise, signed into law in 2012, now stands accused and unloved like a convicted thief in an open court.
"The year-to-year changes in Australia’s climate are mostly associated with natural climate variability such as El Niño and La Niña in the tropical Pacific Ocean and phases of the Indian Ocean Dipole in the Indian Ocean. This natural variability now occurs on top of the warming trend, which can modify the impact of these natural drivers on the Australian climate."
National uncertainty about how best to manage waters, land and weather has been compounded by global warming. The adverse effects have been worse for people in rural areas, who face some immediate challenges and disadvantages not experienced equally by people in the cities.
A description of the population characteristics of those who are most vulnerable to the adverse effects of severe weather events fits like a glove for rural people. They are those who are isolated, are of poorer socio-economic status, have pre-existing health conditions, have less access to infrastructure for transport, heating and cooling, fresh water and food; and have limited access to timely and appropriate health services.
About two-thirds of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live outside Australia’s major cities. As a population group they have significantly poorer health outcomes, which makes them especially vulnerable to the adverse effects of weather events.
A Fact Sheet from the National Rural Health Alliance says in part:
"Hospitalisation rates for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (lung diseases that prevent proper breathing) are already substantially higher in remote areas, and this is likely to be exacerbated by warmer temperatures, coupled with elevated levels of airborne pollens and pollutants, such as bushfire smoke. Homes in rural and remote areas are older and often lack the thermal efficiencies of newer homes (e.g. reflective roofing and insulation). Aged care facilities in rural areas are also generally older, smaller and hotter than those in urban facilities."
There is, however, good news and some of it could be set in place with less contested policies and programs than those that relate to drought and water management.
The business sector the world over is already responding to the price signals and new commercial opportunities that are emerging as part of activities to reduce global warming. The largest and most immediate commercial opportunities include further developments and growth in the renewable energy sector, and carbon sequestration – the long-term storage of carbon in plants, soils, geological formations, and the ocean. In his recently-published book, Superpower, Ross Garnaut asserts that carbon sequestration could capture up to 1 billion tonnes a year – nearly twice Australia’s annual emissions.
This and much else of the economic adaptation required to reduce per head emissions and global warming will necessarily be based in rural and remote areas. This means that, just as the adverse effects of climate change and weather events are felt most immediately and extensively in rural and remote areas, so are the economic opportunities.
Our political and business leaders, small and large, should make more of the positive differential for the economic development of non-metropolitan areas inherent in expanding and new ecologically-enhancing industry sectors.
Ross Garnaut has been the author of advice to governments on climate change for many years. He has no doubt that renewables can meet 100% of Australia’s electricity requirements by the 2030s, with high degrees of reliability and at lower prices. He says that embracing low-carbon opportunities could lead to a clean electricity system more than three times the existing capacity that powers a transformed economy, including electric transport and new and expanded industries in minerals smelting.
The dramatic decline in the cost of renewable energy has brought forward by a decade the time when cheap wind and solar power could provide the country with an advantage in energy-intensive manufacturing. Along with the expected development of green hydrogen, it could help make Australia a natural home for expanded industries in aluminium, steel, silicon and ammonia.
The crucial thing for the people and business of rural areas is that these industrial opportunities will underpin growth and jobs in regional centres such as the Pilbara, the Upper Spencer Gulf in South Australia, Portland and the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, Newcastle in NSW, Townsville, Gladstone and Mackay in Queensland and parts of Tasmania. This would help transform the economy and future prospects of rural areas.
Note: The NRHA has published (6 January 2020) a list of resources for people in bushfire-affected communities. (Accessed at https://www.ruralhealth.org.au/news/resources-people-bushfire-affected-communities). It includes advice on preparing children for the psychological effects of bushfires, on personal recovery, the provision by pharmacists of medications, avoiding harm from smoke, mental health, some phone lines for assistance and some regional data sources.
[1] The figures quoted in this piece are from State of the Climate 2018, CSIRO BOM, Dec. 2018; accessed at https://www.csiro.au/en/Showcase/state-of-the-climate