A landmark United Nations report has concluded that the risk of devastating wildfires around the world will surge in coming decades as climate change further increases what the report described as a.
The organization's environmental authority is the first to evaluate wildfire risks. It was inspired by a string of deadly blazes around the globe in recent years.
The images from those fires have become grim icons of this era of uneasy relations between humankind and nature.
According to the report, the heating of the planet is turning landscapes into tinderboxes.
Climate change is estimated to increase the risk of devastating fires by up to 57 percent by the end of the century according to a report produced by more than 50 researchers. Some regions are more likely to see fire activity than others.
It is a stark warning about the dangers of global warming. The report's authors said that nations and localities need to prepare better for the dangers.
The author of the new report said there wasn't the right attention to fire from governments. She said that more societies are learning the value of prescribed burns and other methods of preventing wildfires from raging out of control. In developed nations, public spending is skewed toward fire fighting.
Over the last decade, brush fires have become more intense in some regions, such as eastern Australia and the western United States and Canada. In places like Russia, northern India and Tibet, burning is becoming more common than before. In parts of the savannas of sub-Saharan Africa, fire activity has declined over the past two decades because of the dry weather.
Climate change is giving rise to more of the record warmth and dry conditions that have contributed to recent episodes of severe burning, but the effect on fire risks is complex and can vary from place to place.
The extreme heat wave in the Pacific Northwest last year almost certainly would not have happened if it weren't for greenhouse-gas emissions. The fingerprints of climate change can be found on brush fires in Australia and extreme heat in Siberia.
The amount of vegetation that is available to feed fires can be decreased by hot weather and weak rain. In places with less humidity, fires can spread more easily.
Even if nations limit emissions of heat-trapping gases, the report still forecasts a significant increase in the global risk of extraordinary wildfires.
The report estimates that in a moderate scenario for global warming, the likelihood of extreme fires could increase by up to a third by 2050 and up to 52 percent by century's end. By the end of the century, wildfire risks could rise by up to 57 percent if emissions are not curbed.
Douglas I. Kelley, a researcher at the U.K. Center for Ecology and Hydrology, conducted the data analysis for the report. The northern reaches of Russia and North America are warming more quickly than the rest of the world. The June of 2020 was the most polluted month in 18 years of data collection because of the intense fires of 2020.
The higher the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, the more vegetation will fuel fires.
In at least 1,200 years, scientists say, the American West has had its worst dry spell. The warm and dry weather is expected to continue into this spring and beyond.
The U.N. urges governments to be more aware of fire dangers. According to research cited in the report, almost 60 cents of every dollar spent on managing wildfires in the US goes to immediate firefighting responses. Reducing fire risks in advance and helping communities recover in ways that could make them more resilient are the things that are spent less on.
Peter Moore, a fire management consultant with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and an author of the report, said more countries could learn from Portugal, which drew up an ambitious national fire plan after two blazes killed more than 100 people. The landscape is highly flammable because of the decline in farmland and the expansion of poorly managed forests.
When the wrong weather turned up, they had a series of dramatic and catastrophic fire events. He said that the same conditions are starting to occur in eastern Australia, western North America, and elsewhere.
Human development does not add to fire risks. Farmers have converted more of the area into cropland and pasture in the tropics of Africa. It is harder for wildfires to spread because of the fragmented savannas. Satellite data shows that the amount of burned land worldwide fell by a quarter between 1998 and 2015.
The University of Cape Town's Dr. Humphrey said that many fires in Africa are set to clear away vegetation and avert wildfires that would be more severe and less controllable. The U.N. report calls for better integration of traditional knowledge into fire policies, as communities in many places have been managing the land this way for centuries.
Something really critical for our planet, but that also needs to be managed, is what Dr. Humphrey said more governments needed to discover.
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