news, national

Former NSW fire chief Greg Mullins insists there's an economic cost to climate change inaction following the release of a new overview on the impact of the summer's bushfires. The Climate Council report - which surveyed journal articles and news reports on Australia's "black summer" - found the tourism sector was set to lose $4.5 billion due to the blazes. The report said the smoke that blanketed Sydney cost the city an estimated $12 to $50 million per day. The council estimates bushfires spewed between 650 million and 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - equivalent to the annual emissions from commercial aircraft worldwide. The recent fire season was NSW's worst on record in terms of the scale of bushfires, the number of properties lost and area burned. The crisis was fuelled by climate change, the report said. "I've been watching this for nearly 50 years," Mr Mullins told reporters in Sydney. "I was fighting these fires as a volunteer. I've been fighting fires since 1971; these fires are different. "They're different because it's hotter, it's drier and the fire seasons are far longer than they used to." The former Fire and Rescue NSW commissioner said the tools previously used to control fires where decreasing in effectiveness because "fires are becoming far worse". Mr Mullins called on the federal government to take "urgent and real action" on emissions and join states and territories by embracing a net-zero emissions goal. He said the report showed there was an economic cost to inaction. "It's cheaper to start to take action, to invest in renewables and to stop the burning of oil, coal and gas which is dooming future generations to even worse." Australian Associated Press

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