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Customary of all kinds of disasters, the island continent has been plagued for three months by one of the most destructive it has ever known. The link with global warming, itself impacted by humans, is established, while Canberra remains a very bad student in the fight for a more sustainable planet. Will Australia get out of its ecological lethargy in the face of what now imposes itself as its immense challenge? In the street as in intellectuals and scientists, anger is in any case eruptive.
Australia is burning on a surface which, in human memory, has never been so vast. Last summer, the appalling fires in the Amazon rainforest violently struck public opinion worldwide. Barely a few months later, when they are not forgotten, they are relegated to the rank of wisps in front of the gigantic flame of the Australian bush flames. Besides, the plumes of smoke rising around the edge of the island flew away… to Brazil , 12,000 km across the Pacific, in a cynical game of communicating vessels. Since September, this proud land of wonders has been discovering the apocalypse .
Scientific red alerts…
Southern summer is just beginning. Heat spikes and fires can still occur in the next two months. But the trimbal season already a procession of human (27 to 9 January) and animal victims - the estimate advanced by Professor Chris Dickman and confirmed to RFI of 1,000,000,000 animals "affected" gives the dimension of the current disaster - and material damage (8.5 million burnt earth, two thousand houses reduced to ashes). “ The human toll is limited in view of the destructive nature of the fires, thanks to the considerable efforts of the firefighters. But it is also due to the very good forecasts from meteorologists. The firefighters were able to anticipate their operations better than in the past, ”says Australian meteorologist Neville Nicholls, joined by us.
The vicious circle is known . First, temperatures rise: 2019 was
the warmest year on record, 1.5 ° C higher than the long-term average and December was the warmest and driest month (40% less precipitation). These extreme heats (summers above 40 ° C have been regular for almost ten years) generate faster evaporation and drying of the vegetation, changed into a highly flammable fuel.
Ten years ago, the country knew the most deadly fires: 173 died during the episode of Black Saturday in 2009, which ended the long drought called "Millennium". Then, in the following two years, Australia suffered the most devastating floods in 150 years, in southeast Queensland (35 dead, 200,000 people affected, $ 2.3 billion in damage).
And this scenario is feared by many agricultural and climate scientists, in Australia as in France or elsewhere: interannual climatic variations, concrete short-term effects of climate change, when it is not fact that an average calculated over a few decades. “After a long drought, there can be heavy rainfall which causes flooding. However, the ground is hard and dry, and the flows are violent, because there is no more vegetation to slow them down. In addition, they cause fire ash in dams and water tanks, which creates other problems, ”says Nicholls.
Each year brings its share of disasters, still today called "natural disasters". A terminology a little outdated and very practical for discarding, as the Canberra Times remarked on January 6 , when the impacts of anthropogenic origin in global warming are well established. “ It's obvious, men are making them worse. And without a political agreement to contain gas emissions, we can expect much worse heat waves in the future, ” warned Neville Nicholls in 2011 . The Meteorological Office, where he worked for 35 years, predicted in its 2018 report, " a drop in precipitation with a longer period of drought ".
The facts and figures are therefore clear, sharp, verified, correlated, long established , and the forecasts more and more precise. " The first alerts from Australian climatologists date back to the 1980s. In 1988, an article indicates that warming will increase the risk of bush fires ," points out this member of the Australian Academy of Sciences.
Meanwhile, scientific communications consultant Ketan Joshi, who worked at the Australian National Science Agency (Csiro), has compiled numerous scientific alerts on fire risks on Twitter.
'If humidity and wind changes eventuate ... potential for increased frequency of severe fires will increase'
Beer et al, 1987 https://t.co/Q0rCji0M0i
"Lobbying has been extremely powerful in a country driven by the resource sector" Beer's boss, Nov '19https: //t.co/5p1QM1ETVh pic.twitter.com/YbtQj96BKs
… Faced with political denial…
In the face of these empirical and scientific observations, have mentalities and public policies changed, at least during the last ten years? No, Canberra remains a very bad student in the fight for a more livable planet. However, it is among the most exposed to the consequences of global warming, of which it is a notable contributor with the highest carbon footprint per capita in the OECD.
Scott Morrison, the climate-skeptical Prime Minister , could not extend the discreet vacation to Hawaii that he had started. He was singled out both for his lack of responsiveness to the scale of the crisis and for his ecological blindness . As for his Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormak, he had this simple word: “ We have had fires in Australia since time immemorial . "
These two leaders of the Liberal camp are not unique in their kind in the political world. The triathlete media Tony Abbott, ex-Prime Minister, fierce defender of the mining economy, is even a reverse climate skeptic: he bet 100 dollars with an unknown met in a cafe that the climate will not change in ten years . In 2014, he abolished the carbon tax - which was very avant-garde - which displeased mining groups and was introduced by his Labor predecessor. “ There has always been a very powerful denial in Australia, where doubt is sufficiently instilled to avoid any political backlash. But this is probably the year of the turning point, ”forecast for RFI Ketan Joshi.
… Less and less accepted
Jealous of the world for its incomparable corners of paradise, the country seems in three months to have reached a point of no return. The concern of civil society, very late, is now very real. Researchers, intellectuals and other media influencers no longer mince words. " I am dismayed, distressed that our politicians let all this happen, enraged climatologist Neville Nicholls. We had warned them for over thirty years: Australia had to suffer more than most of the other countries from global warming because our country is already severely affected by heat, our number one enemy. But they just ignored us and did everything to make the situation worse. We should have trained the world to reduce emissions, but we refused to do anything. Carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 30% since the mid-1990s. Policies have shut down the agencies that were designed to help us understand climate change. They dragged us to the gates of hell. "
In a river interview with L'Obs , the philosopher Peter Singer evokes his " shame " in front of " the short-termism of politicians " and " the failure of rationality "; the famous writer Richard Flanagan denounces in the New York Times the " climatic suicide " of his country; in an icy forum , professor of public ethics Clive Hamilton bluntly announces " the death of the future ".
Anger also in the average Australian. On September 20, nearly 250,000 people demonstrated in Sydney, almost 10% of the country. More modest, the demonstrations continue today , in spite of a particularly toxic air, in several cities of this territory big like 14 times France. Three demands emerge: the end of the Adani mine project which threatens the Great Barrier Reef, the other lung of the planet; 100% renewable energy by 2030; an economic transition allowing the safeguarding of employees' jobs in fossil fuels.
Each year, the Lowy Institute think tank conducts an investigation into the concerns of Australians. The results speak for themselves: in March 2019, 61% of them said that " global warming is a serious and urgent problem " and " that we should start to act now, even if it involves significant costs ". A 25 point increase on the same question since 2008. " At the peak of the drought in 2000, many Australians began to take an interest in environmental issues, but then there was one or two years of normal" precipitation " and the specter of drought has faded a little. Collective memory seems very ephemeral when it comes to the environment. I'm afraid that, in two years, few voters will have these events in mind , ”says Peter Singer.
Australia facing our common destiny
In the Paris Agreement, Canberra promised to reduce its GHG emissions by 26 to 28% by 2030. The UN has deplored the weakness of ambition, which even seems utopian given the environment is far from priorities of the majority chosen in May by the Australians, as the national economy is backed by the mining industry, starting with that of coal, of which it is the leading exporter in the world.
The method of "control fires", arson intended to protect against cold sores, is controversial at the top (fed by a number of conspiracy theories ). But like many academic experts , the fire chief of the state of New South Wales has himself said that this method is not the " panacea " for risk prevention and does not even that " very little effect " in this kind of extreme situation. The weather, on the other hand, is the only factor.
Black ore, a particularly polluting fossil fuel, embodies the main challenge of the country's future environmental policies, and therefore of the elections. As such, the symbolic Adani mine, a ten-year-old sea snake, should crystallize the debates. The Indian group is still awaiting its license for what is, on plan, one of the largest mines in the world. But this pharaonic project, potentially destructive for the regional environment, does not pass as simply as others. Faced with the thousands of jobs promised and as much coal in the number 1 engine of growth (continuous for 30 years), Scott Morrison is, not surprisingly, a fervent defender. " This government is driven by an ideological belief in the mining industry which is out of step with commercial and climatic realities ", regrets in Le Monde John Wiseman, professor at the University of Melbourne. The Labor Party, for its part, is embarrassed by the twists and turns, torn between its electorate and economic realities. As for the Greens, they have only one representative in the lower house.
The fact remains that a form of political slingshot seems to be taking shape and the Coalition is in turmoil . Majority parliamentarians demand action from the head of the executive. " This has a huge impact on the Australian political class," says Ketan Joshi. Politicians had so far managed to chart their course by discreetly avoiding the climate debate. It is no longer possible. "