World must brace for 30% more wildfires by 2050: UN

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The UN warned Wednesday that the number of big wildfires will climb substantially in the coming decades as a result of global warming, and governments will be unprepared for the death and destruction such mega-fires leave in their wake.

According to a UN assessment comprising more than 50 international researchers, the escalating climate crisis and land-use change are driving a global increase in catastrophic wildfires, with a 14 percent increase expected by 2030 and a 30 percent increase by 2050.

"By the end of the century, the probability of wildfire events similar to Australia's 2019–2020 Black Summer or the huge Arctic fires in 2020 occurring in a given year is likely to increase by 31–57 percent," it said.

Landscapes are becoming tinderboxes as the earth warms, and more extreme weather means stronger, hotter, and drier winds to stoke the fires. 

Wildfires are raging where they have always raged, as well as in unexpected areas like thawing permafrost and drying peatlands.

"Fires are not good things," said co-author Peter, an expert in forest fire management at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

"The impacts on people -- socially, health-wise, psychologically -- are phenomenal and long-term," he told journalists in a briefing.

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Large wildfires, which can burn for days or weeks without being put out, can cause respiratory and cardiac difficulties, especially in the old and young.

According to a recent study published in The Lancet, wildfire smoke causes more than 30,000 deaths per year on average in 43 countries for which data was available.

According to an assessment, economic damages in the United States resulting from these fires has ranged from $71 to $348 billion (63 to 307 billion euros) in previous years.

Climate change exacerbates wildfires

Major fires may be damaging to animals, bringing some vulnerable species dangerously near to extinction.

According to scientists, about three billion mammals, reptiles, birds, and frogs were killed or injured by Australia's deadly 2019-20 bushfires.

In the previous three years, extreme heat, drought, and decreasing soil moisture, all exacerbated by global warming, have contributed to unprecedented fires in the western United States, Australia, and the Mediterranean basin.

Even the Arctic, which was historically fire-free, has seen a major spike in blazes, including so-called "zombie fires," which smolder underground all winter before re-igniting.

However, wildfires hasten climate change, perpetuating a vicious cycle of more fires and rising temperatures.

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According to the European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), forests that went up in flames generated more than 2.5 billion tonnes of planet-warming CO2 in just July and August last year, which is similar to India's annual emissions from all sources.

Compiled by 50 leading experts, the report called for a rethink on how to approach the problem.

"Current government responses to wildfires are often putting money in the wrong places," investing in managing fires once they start rather than prevention and risk reduction, said UN Environment chief Inger Andersen. "We have to minimize the risk of extreme wildfires by being prepared."