Fire crisis sees thousands protest around the world demanding climate action

Thousands of people across the world have taken to the streets to protest against the Australian government’s ‘inaction’ on the climate crisis.

With bushfires burning huge parts of the country and estimates of a billion animals left dead, protesters called on prime minister Scott Morrison to urgently change course.

Thousands of Australians, including a baby girl dressed a koala, took to the streets to demand stronger environmental policies, while demonstrators also turned out at Australian embassies around the world, including in London.

Mr Morrison has faced criticism for downplaying the crisis but earlier today he rejected criticism of his government’s environment policies.

He claimed it was ‘disappointing’ and ‘ridiculous’ that people were conflating the fires with Australia’s emission reduction targets, despite broad consensus from scientists that climate change has played a part in the catastrophe.

Australia also weakened its commitment to the landmark UN Paris climate agreement last year, while activists have heavily criticised a major proposed coal mine.

Mr Morrison’s conservative government has taken heavy criticism for its handling of the wildfires, and the prime minister himself has faced a series of embarrassing episodes involving fire-hit communities and firefighters.

Friday’s demonstrations came as authorities urged nearly a quarter of a million people to flee their homes and prepared military backup as soaring temperatures and erratic winds fanned bushfires across the east coast.

Back in Sydney, major were blocked as protesters chanted ‘ScoMo has got to go’, while others held posters that read: ‘There is no climate B’ and ‘Save us from hell’.

12-month-old baby Juniper took part in the rally dressed as a koala, as concerns grow for the animal’s long-term future.

There were similar protests in Canberra, the capital, and Melbourne, where air quality turned so noxious this month that the two cities featured among places with the most polluted air on earth. Smoke has since spread as far as Brazil. 

In Melbourne, huge crowds braved heavy rain and a sharp drop in temperature to come out with placards, shouting ‘Phase Out Fossil Fools’, ‘Fire ScoMo’ and ‘Make Fossil Fuels History’.

But Morrison has repeatedly rejected concerns that his government is not doing enough.

He told Sydney radio 2GB: ‘We don’t want job-destroying, economy-destroying, economy-wrecking targets and goals, which won’t change the fact that there have been bushfires or anything like that in Australia.’

Today’s protests also provoked a backlash from Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews, who said they were wrongly timed and would divert police resources.

He said it was ‘common sense’ that it was not ‘appropriate’ today as concern grows that the blazes are set to worsen.

Teacher Denise Lavell said she attended the protests in Sydney because she believed the pleas were only a tactic to keep people from protesting.

She told Reuters: ‘Our country is burning, our planet is dying and we need to show up.’

Climate scientists have warned the frequency and intensity of the fires will surge as Australia becomes hotter and drier.

Australia has warmed by about 1C since records began in 1910, NASA climate scientist Kate Marvel said this week.

She tweeted: ‘This makes heat waves and fires more likely.

‘There is no explanation for this – none – that makes sense, besides emissions of heat-trapping gases.’

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters, including many from Extinction Rebellion, protested ‘against the Australian government’s failure to respond to the bushfires and the climate and ecological emergency,’ outside the Australian Embassy in London.

Protesters held banners with the words ‘Burning Earth’, listened to speeches and used animal skeletons to draw attention to the plight of wildlife.

Anna Moore, an NHS respiratory doctor, and mum-of-four, said: ‘I spoke to a doctor in Sydney yesterday – they’re used to coping with bushfires but the scale of these fires is unprecedented.

‘People who need oxygen to breathe have no choice except to come into hospital because their oxygen supplies need power.

‘Emergency departments are overwhelmed with people – especially babies and the elderly whose bodies just can’t cope with the heat.’

Activists also called on mobile manufacturing company Siemens to pull out of the Adani coal mine project in Australia’s Galilee Basin, which has provoked widespread criticism for its potential to produce huge carbon emissions.

Environmental activists and school strikers in Berlin demonstrated outside the company’s headquarters and at the German capital’s Australian Embassy.

Extinction Rebellion say Australia-focussed protests are taking place in cities in more than 30 countries – including in Bristol, London and Sheffield in the UK – both today and on January 16.