Climate change’s dangerous new fires
26 July 2022
Published by: https://www.downtoearth.org.in
GLOBAL – Climate change is creating a new kind of dangerous wildfire. It will take all our tools to keep communities safe
Heatwaves have been going through some extraordinary changes in recent history. Since midway through the 20th century, their intensity, frequency and duration have increased across the globe – and these changes are happening faster and faster. Research indicates that this is simply not possible without human influence on the climate.
A child born today could see an extra 30 to 50 heatwave days every year by the time they are 80, up from roughly 4 to 10 days today. Southern states of Australia, such as Victoria and South Australia, which already experience the country’s hottest heatwaves, could see hot days become hotter by up to 4 degrees Celsius.
Across Europe, heatwaves may become hotter by up to 10 degrees Celsius and some heatwaves will last up to two months by the end of this century. In just the next 20 years, the US will experience three to five more heatwaves every decade compared to the second half of the 20th century.
Heatwaves are closely linked to droughts. Generally, a large amount of energy from the Sun goes into drying out moisture in the landscape. But as the amount of moisture available for evaporation declines during a drought, more energy is available for heating the air and the temperature rises. This can become a vicious cycle of increasing evaporation and desiccation of the land surface.
And of course, during times of heatwaves and droughts, wildfires will ignite more readily, burn more intensely and spread faster.
The link between wildfire and heatwaves has been seen across the world in numerous examples. The Australian 2019-20 fire season, known as the ‘Black Summer’, saw huge areas of the populated eastern seaboard dramatically ablaze. The fact that it coincided with Australia’s hottest and driest year on record was no accident.
Extreme fire weather rolled across the continent on an almost weekly basis. First a heatwave would develop across southeast Australia, with hot and dry air funnelled from the centre of the continent drying out dead litter and branches and even live vegetation. This, combined with strong north-westerly winds forming ahead of a cold front, required just a spark to result in what became known as ‘firestorms’. Then, the cold front would arrive, further escalating fire behaviour and triggering thunderstorms and lightning strikes – many of which would flare into the next round of wildfires.
Deep and extensive drought all but guaranteed the fires found fuel that was fully available to burn.
In lock-step with heatwaves, wildfires are a worsening global problem and extreme wildfires, in particular, are affecting fire-prone regions such as western North America, Eastern Russia, and Mediterranean Europe.
For example, the Russian heatwave in 2010, when 300,000 hectares were destroyed by simultaneous wildfires; the 2016 western Canadian heatwave and the Fort McMurray wildfire; and the more recent 2021 record heatwave in British Columbia where temperature records were smashed by up to 5°C, and which was immediately followed by the destruction of the town of Lytton by wildfire.
With climate change driving more heatwaves, associated weather and climate-related factors will increase the incidence of extreme wildfires.
A Royal Commission initiated after Australia’s Black Summer fire disaster pointed to an urgent need to improve disaster management capabilities in order to respond to more frequent, intense, complex and costly fires under a changing climate.
This can be done in all of three ways: first, limit the vulnerability of communities and ecosystems to fire; second, limit communities and ecosystems exposure to fire; third, limit the fire itself.
For example, improving community information and fire preparedness reduces vulnerability.
Improved development planning, building standards and management of the forest-urban boundary reduces exposure.
Land management that reduces the opportunity for large fires to develop, or firefighting to extinguish fires once they start, reduces the fire itself.
Information about forest dryness is useful for early warning and preparedness for extreme fires. Similarly, mapping climate variability across many years can help predict extreme years. Recommendations of the Royal Commission included improving national systems of collecting and sharing bushfire related information, including information on climate change and fuel loads.
‘Hazard reduction burns’ are a practice that is widely used to reduce forest fire risk in Australia. However, scientific studies have found no clear indication of how much fuel load matters in extreme wildfires. Given that fuel loads are one of the few elements of fire that humans can control, this is concerning, as it suggests hazard reduction burning may be of only limited effectiveness.
Of course, there are limits to how much the risk of wildfires can be mitigated. As climate change moves fire outside of the range of human experience, disaster management will become increasingly challenging and potentially less effective.
While efforts can be made to limit vulnerability, exposure and fire itself, it is clear that the contribution of climate change to fire risk would be lower if greenhouse gas emissions were curtailed. Pursuing ambitious global greenhouse gas mitigation alongside national and local measures to adapt to a climate changed world, is a necessary strategy if we are to limit further increases in fire risk.
Jason Sharples is Professor of Bushfire Science at the University of New South Wales. Nerilie Abram is a Professor of Climate Science at the Australian National University. Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick is an ARC Future Fellow at the School of Science, UNSW Canberra.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
The Tamil Nadu government July 11, 2022, announced the institution of district climate change missions (DCCM) across 38 districts in the state.
There have been negligible discussions or reactions post the announcement among citizens, experts, non-profits and the media. It is thus important to consider DCCMs in the right perspective.
There are few pertinent concerns that must be addressed without doubting the intent behind the setting up of these missions:
- Will DCCMs include local populations in making decisions to achieve climate resilience? Will they work in accordance with the ethos of climate justice?
- Will DCCMs overlap with district disaster management processes and their plans?
- Are they the equivalent of people’s adaptive or collaborative climate governance?
- Or are they just another bureaucratic set up announced with a meagre budget but remain just on paper?
Role of DFOs
The DCCMs will be administered by district collectors as ‘mission directors’ according to the Government Order No. 120. District forest officers (DFOs) will function as ‘climate officers’.
Usually, all Union and state government-sponsored projects and programmes targeted at districts are administered by the district collector. Therefore, appointing district collectors as mission heads is logical except that the lack of focus may haunt the mission.
However, appointing DFOs as climate change officers has neither been scientifically considered, nor administratively thought out. Most probably, it has been hastily considered due to a truncated understanding of climate change as only an environmental problem.
Mitigating and adapting to climate change is not limited to recorded forest areas. A DFO’s direct responsibility is usually the management of the wildlife and forest area of a district.
Tamil Nadu is highly prone to extreme weather events in India. Most of its districts’ risk and vulnerability assessment have been done. For example, 22 districts in Tamil Nadu are critically water-stressed. Twelve coastal districts are prone to cyclones, sea level rise and other climate change-induced disasters.
Will it be prudent to consider DFOs as climate change officers to address these issues? Wouldn’t it be amusing to see the revenue department and forest department who are usually at loggerheads due to the encroachment of or conversion of recorded forest land for non-forest activities, working together in DCCMs?
Of course, it is absolutely arrogant and wrong to consider that district collectors or DFOs are not aware of climate change. There is no doubting the competence and efficiency of DFOs in managing, protecting and preserving forests and wildlife in designated protected areas.
Having said that, the government may consider appointing a special climate change officer with the rank of sub-collector in all DCCMs.
Decentralisation much?
The intent behind DCCMs is laudable. But the devil is in the details. According to the government order, the collectors will have to prepare district-level climate change mitigation and adaptation plans, build capacity and provide inputs for low-carbon, climate-resilient development plans.
But this could make a DCCM just another usual closed-door meeting of all official representatives, with one or two known non-profits. Instead, a climate change advisory council can be formed in each district to adequately represent all stakeholders and advise the DCCMs and their plans.
One can draw lessons from and improve upon the district planning committee under Article 243 ZD of the Constitution of India.
Climate change governance at the local / district level should be collaborative, flexible, strategic and reflective, rather than a bureaucrat-controlled mission.
Then, there is the plethora of documents. Neither mainstreaming of climate change nor integration of disaster risk management have been incorporated in any district planning so far. It is mandatory to prepare a district disaster plan and an optional district environmental plan.
Can all these not be merged into a single planning document for a district? At best, can the district climate change plan accommodate the disaster and environmental plans? In all probability, there will be a high potential of friction among sectoral or departmental supremacy in addressing or not addressing climate change.
The state government aims to strengthen climate response at the grassroots through DCCMs. It has initially sanctioned Rs 3.80 crore for 38 district missions, which will function under the supervision of the Tamil Nadu Climate Change Mission and Tamil Nadu Green Climate Company.
The latter is a special purpose vehicle established to manage Tamil Nadu Climate Change Mission, Green Tamil Nadu Mission and Tamil Nadu Wetlands Mission.
Is this a pioneering decentralised model? There have been ample case studies that strict government control decentralisation planning models won’t work in addressing climate change and climate change-induced disasters.
Will the DCCMs report to the State Climate Change Steering Committee, the apex body, or the Technical Committee on Climate Change or the Mission Specific Working Groups on Climate Change under the Tamil Nadu State Action Plan on Climate Change 2.0?
Creating additional or parallel institutions under the pretext of a focused approach, without strengthening the resilient capacity of citizens, communities or capacity building of line agencies means that the efforts remain restricted to government orders.
The motive behind institutionalising DCCMs must not be only getting climate-friendly projects from both international and national industries or wooing them to invest in smart climate technology.
The DCCMs must be accessible, accountable and beneficial to people of the districts, especially the vulnerable groups including youth, women, communities depending on natural resources and elderly people. Not another ad hoc climate change board.
Avilash Roul is guest professor and principal scientist at the Indo-German Centre for Sustainability, IIT-Madras
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth
