Australia can expect an increase in the regularity and intensity of bush fires due to climate change according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).

As in some parts of California in the United States, population growth in Australia has led to houses being built in areas closer to bushland that is prone to bush fires.

“Heatwaves and fires are virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency,” the IPCC concluded in its most recent Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.

Quirin Schiermeier from the Journal “Nature” asserts that while no single weather event can be attributed to climate change with any degree of certainty, climate models do suggest that Australian summers will get warmer and drier as the century proceeds, and there is little doubt that this will have an effect on fire risk.

According to the IPCC, average temperatures in central Australia could increase by up to 8°C by 2080. In southeast Australia, the frequency of very high and extreme fire danger days is likely to rise by 4–25% by 2020 and by 15–70% by 2050, according to the IPCC’s report.

The CSIRO reported that by 2020 there could be up to 65% more “extreme” fire danger days compared with 1990, and that by 2050, under the most severe warming scenarios, there could be a 300% increase in such days.

The recent bush fires in Melbourne may have been started by arsonists, however, we can not ignore the increased risk posed by climate change.

Speaking to Sky News, Senator Brown said “Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25%, 50% more”. He told the broadcaster “it’s a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change”.

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