Bushfires Royal Commission

The first round of the public hearings for the royal commission into national natural disaster arrangements, sometimes called the Bushfires Royal Commission, has begun in Canberra via video link. 

The inquiry has received more than 1,700 public submissions and 16,589 documents, totalling more than 200,000 pages. A further 159 notices to produce information or documents have not yet been answered, including from state and territory governments.

The commission is still planning to produce its final report and recommendations in August 2020.

This week the focus is on climate and the first witness, the Bureau of Meteorology’s head of climate modelling, Dr. Braganza, delivered a powerpoint presentation filled with many disturbing graphs about Australia’s worsening bushfire conditions.

Compared to 1950s, the start of the fire season has now been pushed back three months from November to August in Victoria and even July in parts of south-east Queensland and New South Wales. 

Climate change is exacerbating underlying weather events, causing even more extreme temperatures and drier conditions. Droughts are getting much hotter.

Braganza says the 2019-2020 fires were not a “one off event”:

“Really since the Canberra 2003 fires, every jurisdiction in Australia has seen some really significant fire events that have challenged what we do to respond to them and have really challenged what we thought fire weather looked like preceding this period.

The frequency of these events, if we look at the historical record, seems to be increasing. These large fire events when you look back over the 19th and 20th century were not as frequent as they were this century.”
Source: Guardian Australia
Of course this will upset the climate change deniers club (cult?), many of whom sit in our federal government.

But anyone who lives on the land and is in tune with its environment knows that there is irrefutable evidence of change, whether it be how the seasons have altered, the increased intensity of weather events or even how plant life behaviour has adapted eg. grapevines shooting a month earlier than when planted nearly two decades ago, fruit trees flowering in winter.

More, obviously, to come in the months ahead.