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AFTER A BLACK SUMMER, A CALL FOR DRASTIC ACTION GREG MULLINS AO, AFSM Greg Mullins is an internationally recognised expert in responding to major bushfires and natural disasters and developed a keen interest in the linkages between climate change and extreme weather events after observing escalating frequency and impacts over nearly five decades. He coordinated responses to many major natural disasters over more than 2 decades and retired as Commissioner of Fire & Rescue NSW in January 2017. He worked with bushfire fighting authorities in the USA, Canada, France and Spain during a Churchill Fellowship in 1995, and represented Australian emergency services at many international forums. Upon retirement he rejoined the volunteer bushfire brigade where he had started in 1972, and fought fires through NSW during Black Summer.
The 2019/2020 bushfire season in Australia demonstrated what scientists have been trying to warn about for decades – that a warming climate will lead to increased risks from bushfires and other natural disasters. From early 2019 former fire and emergency services chiefs representing every Australian fire service tried to warn the Federal Government that climate change has pushed Australia into a new, dangerous era of bushfire and natural disaster risk, and that a horror bushfire season was unfolding. The warnings of scientists and experts were dismissed and even ridiculed by the Federal Government, such as when the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, referred to the linkage between bushfires and climate change as ‘the ravings of some pure, enlightened, and woke inner-city greenies’. He also dismissed the former fire and emergency chiefs as ‘time wasters’.1
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER | VOLUME 29: ISSUE 3 – OCTOBER 2020
A recap of the 2019/2020 bushfire season:
• 34 people killed by fires • At least 417 people killed by smoke • Up to 3 billion native animals killed and habitats destroyed • About 3,100 homes destroyed nationally • In NSW alone: 2,448 homes destroyed – 11 times greater than the previous worst fire season when 225 homes were destroyed (2013). 268 “facilities” destroyed (schools, shops, halls etc), and 5,499 other buildings • Hundreds of homes and businesses seriously damaged • Many people left homeless and destitute.
The year 2019 was the hottest, driest ever recorded in Australia. Current fire chiefs from across Australia warned repeatedly that the weather conditions driving the fires were unprecedented. The fires resulted in the largest bushfire property losses ever suffered in Queensland and NSW, and the destruction of hundreds of homes in Victoria and South Australia. More than 12 million hectares of land were scorched; about 21% of eastern broadleaf forest, against an average annual toll of around 2-3%.
