Why wildfires could be more extreme in the future

A damning report on the state of climate change was released by the U.N. on Monday. It came as wildfires raged across parts of the U.S., Russia, Greece and Turkey. Climate scientist Richard Allan, a lead author of the report, told Yahoo News that fires and other extreme weather events could become more intense if global warming is not tackled effectively.

Video transcript

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EVE HARTLEY: These are the scenes on the Greek Island of Evia as wildfires force people to flee from their homes. Fires broke out across Greece during the country's worst heat wave in three decades, with searing temperatures and dry heat causing tinderbox conditions. Over the past month fires have also been raging across the world, from the US to Russia to Turkey.

The Dixie Fire is California's second largest wildfire in the state's history. Nearly 1,000 structures have been impacted by the fire, and more are still at risk. And events such as these could become more extreme because of climate change, researchers are warning. On Monday, the UN released a damning report about the state of climate change across the world. Here's Richard Allan, one of the authors of the report.

RICHARD ALLAN: Well, it's certainly showing a stark message that humans are causing the planet to warm and that without rapid, strong, and sustained cuts in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases we're heading into a world where it will be not pleasant for many, particularly the vulnerable, to live.

EVE HARTLEY: The report warned that heat waves, droughts, and storms that can cause wildfires and flooding are directly caused by global warming.

RICHARD ALLAN: These events are caused by the weather. So the weather generates heat waves, heavy rain, and associated flooding or wildfire weather conditions. But when these ingredients come together in a warmer world, they will be more intense or more severe than they would otherwise be.

So it's not really a matter of there'll be more events. It's just the events that we do see will be more severe. And so in a way you're promoting moderate, extreme events up to really extreme, extreme events. And the most extreme events we see today will be kind of elevated to unprecedented events in the future.

EVE HARTLEY: But some of the worst impacts of climate change can still be avoided.

RICHARD ALLAN: If we do follow these rapid and sustained cuts in carbon dioxide so that we get to what's called net-zero emissions, where any emissions of carbon dioxide are canceled out by sucking carbon dioxide out of the air, for example, with deforestation or removal of carbon dioxide in other ways, then, yes, we can get to a situation and a world that we will be able to adapt to. And it won't be easy because there will still be these extreme events, and there may be concurrent and compound extremes that affect multiple breadbasket regions, for example, that we'll need to, as a planet, deal with. But we'll be able to adapt to these. We'll be able to move resources around to adapt to these changes in the climate in the future if we limit the warming based on what the science shows to below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial or even 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial.

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