The government has been accused of significantly watering down its official advice on extreme weather after removing mention of links between climate change and events such as bushfires and heatwaves. A document on the Department of Environment’s website, aimed at informing the public on how climate change is influencing dangerous weather, has removed an explicit reference linking the two. A previous version of the document opened with the statement: “There is a growing and robust body of evidence that climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. “Australia has experienced an increasing number and intensity of heatwaves, bushfires, flooding and droughts in recent decades.” An amendment to the page removes these lines in favour of a general explanation of what extreme weather is. The page goes on to acknowledge that the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is “changing” and that “some studies” show a link to climate change, but stresses that it is “difficult to isolate the role of climate change in any given event”. As Guardian Australia reported in October, the previous version of the departmental advice contradicted Tony Abbott’s view that any link between bushfires and climate change was “complete hogwash”. The prime minister, speaking in the wake of the widespread New South Wales bushfires last year, also said Christiana Figueres, the UN’s climate chief, was “talking out of her hat” for linking rising temperatures to increased bushfires. Amanda McKenzie, a former government official and now chief executive of the Climate Council, told Guardian Australia the amendment had led to “softer language” on the link between climate change and extreme weather. “Lives and communities are at risk from bushfires so it’s very important that communities and firefighting services are prepared for changes that we are already seeing,” she said. theguardian/environment/2014/jun/30/extreme-weather-official-advice-rewritten-to-remove-climate-change-link
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 07:20:03 +0000
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