Climate action requires unity not division

Original article by Fr. Chris Middleton SJ on La Croix International.

The bushfires that have assailed Australia over these past weeks have reminded us of the fragility of this ancient land.

The loss of life and of so many homes, properties and farms, and the loss of livestock and of native animals, have touched almost every corner of the country, just as the smoke haze has smothered so much.

The natural disaster has also brought out the best in so many people. The heroic efforts of our volunteer ‘firies’, and of so many others, the resilience of so many small communities, and the generosity of the wider community, shine amid the pain and loss.

A reminder too, of the richness of Australian identity, with Muslim and Sikh and Vietnamese groups, among others, reaching out in support of the firies and affected communities.

And on the ground, our traditional religious groups, the Salvos and Vinnies, along with the Red Cross, play vital roles in enabling the volunteer services and supporting affected communities.

Politically, it has been something of a disaster for Prime Minister Morrison. The ill-advised holiday in Hawaii, gaffes on the road, breakdowns in communications etc. have plagued him.

More importantly though, are the policy challenges around bushfires, drought, and climate change that need to be addressed.

The Liberals and Nationals have to find a way forward that balances the interests of their supporters with serving the national good. Old arguments and ideological stands need to be re-examined. The Prime Minister needs to enable a real debate.

Naturally enough many who are passionate about climate change have seized on the fires to press their case. I think we need to be careful not to claim too much, as polarisation has done so much to hinder progress in Australia, and exaggerated positions exacerbate this division.

It seems to me that if every change in Australian policy, proposed by the Greens and others in the last ten years, had indeed been adopted, it would not have altered the present reality.

The fact is that no decisions by Australia could have adverted the changing climate or have prevented the drought and these bushfires. Only worldwide action can so mitigate any human impact on climate.

Let me be clear that this does not negate the pressing moral argument for Australia to do its bit, because only by many smaller players doing their part will there be a chance for real and effective global action.

But the actions of any Australian government could not have averted the perfect storm of the 2019-20 Summer. The bushfires in the main are not the result of climate action.

As a farmer’s son, I am only too aware of the weather cycles in Australia (some that are decades in length). It has always been a hard land, even allowing for the compounding effect of a warming climate.
Droughts have always afflicted us. This drought, in extent and intensity, has been particularly bad, if not unprecedented.

The issue of hazard reduction

We are used to understanding that the cyclic El Niño effect in the Pacific leading to drought conditions in Australia.

What has made it worse is that cool seas off WA’s north-west (caused by the cyclic Indian Ocean Dipole) have kicked off a climatic phenomenon that has exacerbated a winter drought across central and southern Australia.

Thus the frequency of risk of a significant fire danger season in southeast Australia is significantly higher following an El Niño year, particularly when combined with another major climate driver, the Indian Ocean Dipole.

Some El Niño years have been followed by very severe summer fires, including Ash Wednesday (1983) and the 2002–03 and 2006–07 seasons. This terrible bushfire season is largely shaped by two long-standing climate drivers that have overlapped in 2019.

The other factors that are relevant to the unfolding tragedy are more directly within the ambit of responsibility of government at all levels.

Two major things are evident.

Our voluntary fire services need to be better resourced, from communications equipment and uniforms through to vehicles and big items, like air bombers. A primary responsibility of government is security, and in Australia’s case, this responsibility extends to security against drought and bushfire.

More contentious are policies around hazard reduction, of reducing the fuel available for fires.

Many locals complain that government bureaucracy and pressure from the Greens and other environmentalists have hindered the making of adequate precautions for fires, especially around nature reserves. Fire is integral to the health of the Australian bush.

We need to be careful here, also, of not making too extreme claims around the issue of hazard reduction — it is not the sole issue, any more than climate change.

There is a middle ground where perhaps, in the aftermath of these fires, national policy can be created around drought and water management, bush fires and land management, and a climate policy that balances effective climate action to reduce carbon emissions with the realities of energy in this continent.

The fixation on the immediate cessation of coal mining, for instance, prevents real progress, but rather in this dry land there needs to be a focus on planting trees and promoting renewables, with husbanding our water with new infrastructure and land conservation.

We need to find new ways of moving forward that transcend the divisions in the Australian polity.

Fr Chris Middleton SJ is the rector of Xavier College in Melbourne.