Australia 122° F [50° C] Inferno: Victoria ablaze- Firefighters race to stop exploding “Gasoline Trees” Wild Weather channel 20-min Feb 21 report w transcript, at DIYH on a Heating Planet blog

These are fire storms 20 times more deadly and 80 times more destructive than a century ago, so bad they had to add a level: Catastrophic. All of Australia's weather is changing. They had to add two new colors to its weather maps for temperatures hotter than 122° F [50° C]. Deaths from heat waves have doubled in the last decade. Drought has drained reservoirs and driven families off the land they've farmed for generations. Firefighters call eucalyptus gasoline trees because- READ & WATCH Feb 21- 122°F Inferno: Racing to Stop Australia’s Exploding “Gasoline Trees” transcript below:Feb 21, 2026. Australia is a land of extremes, but a new era of "catastrophic" weather is pushing the continent to its breaking point. From the high-stakes aerial water bombings to the resilient citizens living 10 meters underground in Coober Pedy, we investigate a chilling question: Is climate change making the Land Down Under uninhabitable? Watch as we join veteran fire crews on a mission through the Adelaide Hills during one of the most destructive fire seasons in history. Wild Weather channel from United States Joined YT Jan 15, 2021 206K subscribers 483 videos 60,670,785 views Description From devastating earthquakes and twisting tornadoes to ferocious wildfires, Wild Weather is the home for documentaries on the devastating power of Mother Nature and the worst natural disasters that occur across the globe.

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This fire is one more dramatic reminder that the effects of climate change are upon us.

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Transcript

The wind is really picking up. I'm in Australia, a land of extremes. Extreme heat, floods, and fires. The fire is crossing the road just right ahead of us. Wow. Climate change is making it all more intense. This year's fire season has come early and it's shaping up to be one of the worst in history. That could get seriously big. Oh, she's got to get seriously. We know life in Australia is becoming unbearably hot, but could climate change make the country uninhabitable? That's what I'm here to find out. 

Australia is vast and diverse with coasts that meet five different seas. Being down under usually conjures images of an idyllic life of surf and sand. But a more realistic portrait of the country is emerging. That of a hostile desert. The central Australian outback. This place is inhospitable on a good day. Droughts and heat waves are commonplace here. Last summer they experienced the hottest day on record, the hottest month on record, and the hottest summer on record. In fact, Australia had to add two new colors to its weather maps for temperatures hotter than 122° F. 

Sun is something we escape here. Sun is something you avoid here. The sun will kill you here. Quite literally, you're outside with no shelter. 3 days is all you got. 

I came to Australia on a mission of discovery to find out if climate change was causing this place to become uninhabitable. Flooding, droughts, and heat waves are nothing new here. But records show they're increasing in intensity and frequency. Deaths from heat waves have doubled in the last decade. Drought has drained reservoirs and driven families off the land they've farmed for generations. But what's fueling all these extremes? Without a doubt, this stuff's being driven up by the fact we've got more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. 

The climate's warming. 

It's shifting to a hotter state. 

Australia is part of a global problem. 

Countries around the world are pumping more carbon into the atmosphere than ever before, mostly by burning coal, oil, and gas. The resulting extremes in weather, prolonged heat, and bone dry conditions lead to vicious bush fires. Lightning is most often the spark. 

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Victoria ablaze. 

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Year after year, the fire season is starting earlier, lasting longer, and fires are burning more intensely. These things aren't just fires creeping along. These are fire storms. These are roaring, burning masses of gas that can just jump across grassy areas and start burning. They're huge phenomena that can move quickly, develop quickly, and fires are only going to get worse. Bush fires are almost 20 times more deadly and 80 times more destructive than a century ago. 

This morning in the Adelaide Hills, it's already a scorching 100° F. The danger has been elevated last night up to catastrophic for today. And it doesn't really get any more dangerous than catastrophic. A decade ago, the worst fire weather conditions were called extreme. They've since had to add a level beyond that catastrophic. 

So, what the firefighters are demonstrating right now is their protection system. They have shields that come down on the inside of the glass and a water spray that surrounds the entire truck. So, if the fire overtakes the truck, keeps these guys safe. That is impressive. And the risks for those on the front line are very real. Since 1980, 83 firefighters have been killed. 

I hope you guys never have to use it. Yeah, so do we. Thanks, guys. On a catastrophic fire day, access to burn areas is highly restricted. I reckon that's pretty good. The only way in is with the fire crews themselves. Go. Ian Tanner, a veteran with the Country Fire Service, is going to show me what they're up against. 

[overlapping] we've got a conservation park on both sides. So it's mostly vegetation. Fuel. Fuel. That's exactly right. Fuel. What the locals call vegetation. You call fuel. 

We're traveling along a ridge through the Mount Lofty Ranges. On both sides are steep hills and valleys covered in dense bush. You get a real sense now of what we're up against. And fire typically goes up. It's the one thing that can go uphill faster than downhill. All those houses up on that ridge line are almost undefendable on a day like today. So people are evacuating their houses on the speculation that maybe a fire might form. That's correct. So how many people are we talking about here? You could be talking about 100,000 people or more. That's a major evacuation. Obviously not everyone does it and there's a house down there that's probably relatively safe. They would probably choose to stay home. The Morcraftofts are incredibly wellarmed in their fight to protect their home from fire. What I would really love is to see your sprinkler system in action. Okay. So, what have you got going on? Their elaborate sprinkler system can create a wall of water approximately 130 ft around the house. We've lived here for 20 years and we haven't actually had a fire that's um come within well few hundred meters of the house. The water comes from a 5,000galon tank that's dedicated solely to firefighting. And so you got your personal bush fire kit kit radio. 

This is the channel that gets all the fire warnings. A head lampamp and this is all in the name of home protection. That's right. Just never know when it could happen. So you always need to to be prepared. So if you live in the bush in Australia, the very bare minimum that you need to protect your property is this type of equipment. 

So, we've got a report that just came in of a grass fire not too far away and there's some other units that are being deployed. Okay. At the moment, it's probably in grassland quickly. Oh, yeah. I see some smoke. Yeah. Yeah. 

Firefighters and volunteers arrive at the scene very quickly. Where's the access? There's a low inensity fire in a predominantly grassy area. It's roughly 40 acres in size. 

Here comes the crime. It's crucial firefighters act quickly. They know from experience they only have 15 minutes to get this fire out cuz on a catastrophic fire day, conditions can change in a second. If you have a look at the leaves in the trees, you can see that the leaves are still there. So the fire hasn't got up into the trees, right? So it's come through here fairly quickly. It's not really high flames. Here's an area where you can see the fire is just in this very low lying fuel. So just the grass and the leaf litter incoming. Fire retardants. In no time, the fire is pretty much out. 

These guys are really on the ball. They're so fast at what they do. Ground crews are backed by highly trained professionals and volunteers who dispatch crews and analyze fire behavior. As climate change increases the intensity of bush fires, operations have had to grow larger and more sophisticated. Very fluky wind at the moment. Can you feel that wind now picking up? That doesn't bode well for the rest of the afternoon. No. 

This steep topography can funnel the wind, making fire behavior very unpredictable. You can see how these hot spots can easily flare up again. It doesn't take much. You get a little ember from something like this and you got a whole new fire. And just as the fire is almost completely put out, Ian gets bad news. It's jumped, right? Jumped across this little valley. Crews have to act fast. They know that one ember in this thick brush with poor access could turn this small grass fire into a monster. And the fire is just right ahead of us. Wow. 

As climate change raises temperatures across Australia, it's fueling unprecedented bush fires. Okay, fire behind us. What started as a small grass fire that was nearly put out has jumped into the thicker brush and is growing very quickly. It's coming up through the grass here. Water bomber overhead. You can see it's getting very, very close and it's going to jump this. This is no fire break. It's going to go. We're getting called back. Yep, we're going. It's spotted over the creek. Now, if it does that again and again, it gets very hard. 

Australian bush fires are notorious for jumping huge distances. This is largely because of the eucalyptus trees. Firefighters call them gasoline trees because fire moves incredibly fast up the trunk along the string of bark to the canopy of the tree. up there. Broad leaves that are filled with combustible eucalyptus oil don't just burn, they explode, shooting flaming bark and leaves in all directions. Add a good wind and fire can be thrown as far as 20 m away. 

The situation is changing very, very dynamically. I've been given the two-minute warning here. We have to get out because the wind is starting to change direction. I can see the smoke now blowing this way. So, we got to pull together. The fire has fully taken in the scrub. Heavier fuels mean the fire burns more intensely and is much harder to put out. Air bombers attack the head of the fire, but it rekindles in minutes. I think that's an interesting thing. This one piece will make 52 layers….

10.30

The fire is moving fast and is headed straight for the town of Kursbrook where residents are scrambling to evacuate. It's on one of the access roads here and the fire is just coming up over the ridge and crossing the road just right ahead of us and it's just making its way up on these branches. We've got a safe escape route down this way. We got to really keep a close eye on the fire behavior. This tree here is already up. The wind is predominantly blowing in this direction. So, the fire is going to spread this way. Here it comes. Wow. In just a few hours, the fire has left a path of destruction through the hills, 10 mi long and a half mile wide. Water bomber blizzard running from the fire. That's what happens. 

The fire just pushes all these animals out ahead and they're just running for their lives. So, I'm going to bring them over to a safe spot and let them free. fire continues down the ridge, leaving total destruction in its wake. So, you'll see it's not much left now. So, all this fire damage is just moments old. Still hot. Topography drew it to the top of the hill and and now it's heading south again at a fair rate of knots. 

The fire burns through the forest, heating the ground 40 ft in front of it, making it impossible for crews to get close. We're able to follow the tail of the fire. That is until shifting winds change everything. Wow. Until now, this fire was spreading with a narrow front. An extreme 90° windshift has now turned the flank fire into a head fire, going from a half mile wide front to a 10m wide front in the blink of an eye. Is there any chance we're going to be able to stop it getting through there? No, we're not. That could get seriously big. Oh, she's going to get seriously big. Support is called in from fire services in the neighboring states. But will they have the resources to stop the fire before it sweeps into the populated hillside towns right now. 

There's basically nothing that the firefighters can do. They're trying to protect some of the assets, homes, farms in the area, but that's all they can do. Try and slow it down. Goes to show how capricious fire actually can be. All it takes is a little ember from a fire that we thought was out to just light up the whole area. And the bigger the fire, the more erratically it can behave. Smoke devil. On rare occasions, fire whirls can develop and throw burning debris miles away. 

Whoa. This bunch of trees is basically exploding right here. 

The oil in the eucalyptus is picking up all that heat. And there was just this big surge. The wind is really picking up. The heat I'm feeling on my face right now is almost indescribable. Yeah. Got to back away from that. Let's make sure the wildlife here has an exit. The fire spreads erratically and is fanned in some places by 65 mph winds. It's burning in what is Australia's third hottest year ever recorded. The hottest was just 2 years earlier. Looks like there's possibly another fire out here. See the smoke on the horizon. 

As night falls, firefighters do everything they can to contain this out of control bush fire. Crews will start to get on top of it tonight. Um, tomorrow could be a whole another interesting story with some more bad weather forecast. Time will tell. Time will tell. Fire crews work all through the night, but the mark of a heat wave is that nighttime temperatures aren't much lower than in the daytime. On day two, the fire is declared a major emergency. So far, it's burned through 27,000 acres. It's hit four towns and 13 firefighters have been injured and they have to deal with more catastrophic fire weather. 

It is a scorching hot day with very low relative humidity. Of course, as these temperatures continue to stay hot year after year after year, we're just going to see more and more fires just like this one. 

We know this because we can see that all of Australia's weather is changing. Because of climate change, Australian winters are now dumping more rainfall in big bursts, causing flooding, which results in more vegetation growth and so denser bush. But in the summer, the heat is on. More hot, dry days lead to drought, and all that dense bush turns into kindling. All you need is a spark to start a raging wildfire. 

We're briefed that two new major fires have broken out and are threatening the towns of Tantanula and Glen Cove. Has the Has the asking to go in and check. This family got out safely, but nothing could be done to save their farm. This is the reality of living in South Australia. It's inhabitable, but just it's really astounding to see the power of these wildfires. 

Just the tremendous speed at which they can spread, how hot they can burn, and how much of an effect they can have on the people that live here. Over the next 4 days, 20 homes are destroyed, and considerable livestock and crops are lost. But luckily, no one has died. That's not been the case in the past. The country's worst ever natural disaster was a bushfire. We're finding more bodies as we gain access. In 2009, 173 people died in the Black Saturday fire. Will firefighters in South Australia be able to stop this fire from turning into a similar disaster? 

By day five, fire crews in South Australia are exhausted, but they continue to do everything they can to protect surrounding communities. We might need edges right along this other side if we can. What really impresses me is the response that you guys have. So many trucks, so many volunteers. The people around here really do seem to listen to the warnings. And obviously some places all you can do is stand back and watch. There's nothing you can do in a lot of situations. Yeah. These firefighters are on the front lines dealing with some of the worst effects of climate change in Australia. 

Ultimately, it takes them 6 days to bring this bush fire under control. It burned through almost 32,000 acres. 27 homes were destroyed and 134 people, mainly firefighters, were injured. The total cost was nearly $40 million. This fire is one more dramatic reminder that the effects of climate change are upon us. It's a lesson that's hitting home from one end of Australia to the other. Australians are being forced to find unique remedies to their superheated climate. and they've come up with some creative solutions to the problem. 

In the heart of the Australian Outback, the town of Coobery has already found a drastic way to deal with the searing heat. Well, come on down and I'll give you an idea of how we live. You're 10 m underground here. This place looks amazing. It's certainly not cavelike. You even have a window. Yep. And that's just a bore hole to the surface. Cool in the summer, warmer in the winter. Yeah. No heating or air conditioning cost whatsoever. Not ideal for those days under 30°. The resourceful adaptations of Coober Pey continue outside. So this is the Coober Piti golf course. I see you're missing something rather important. Grass. Yes. So we got blacks instead of greens. And you have 18 holes here. 18 holes. This is the worst golf course I've ever seen. Yep. And it's probably the worst in the world. Your ball will always end up in the rough here. Someone's just gone ahead and built an 18 hole golf course in the middle of Central Australia as an act of defiance. It's like, you tell me I can't. Well, here it is. 

And that sort of defines the Australian personality of Yes. That pioneering mentality. The people of Coobery have found a unique way to beat the heat. But this is just one community. If temperatures keep rising the way they have been, the entire country may soon look like this. But will it become uninhabitable? Well, not to Australians. The one thing that I've learned about these people is that they are strong. They are resilient. They take pride in being able to adapt and survive in these types of environments, as harsh as they might be. There may not be a need to adapt if Australia's climate becomes more hospitable. That could happen if countries around the world reduce the amount of greenhouse gas they're putting into the atmosphere. As Australians confront the most dire effects of climate change, they're turning to alternative energy sources to fight the problem. Australia is giving the rest of the world a glimpse of the future if climate change goes unchecked. Maybe they can also show the w  orld what    could be done to fight it.*** 122°F Inferno: Racing to Stop Australia’s Exploding “Gasoline Trees” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBxhHUJ8H9A

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RELATED from last December:

Australia heatwave & bushfires, as summer 2026 begins, the year global warming will no longer be called a hoax- 4 reports from ABC, Cổ Nhân Truyền Thống, NewsBOT & moneycontrol, Heating Planet Get ready for a scorching summer in 2025-26 Southern Hemisphere. On Friday- Saturday Dec 5-6 large parts of Australia faced fires with heatwave https://cityofangels25.blogspot.com/2025/12/australia-heat-fires-as-summer-2026.html

AND

Australia's bushfires are back and deadly- "Money can't stop what's happening in the atmosphere"- Earth Unleashed channel 14-min Dec 12 video w transcript at Heating Planet blog Right now over fifty fires are burning across Australia, turning the continent into a war zone. https://cityofangels25.blogspot.com/2025/12/australias-bushfires-are-back-deadly.html

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[KE: Everything scientists predicted about global warming/ climate change since the 1970s is coming true, only faster]

Planetary solvency plan needed; Jakarta Paris Bangladesh & New York challenges around the world similar "We seem to be sailing blind" -Sir David King UK climate advisor talks to Nick Breeze ClimateGenn 38-min Mar 9 report w transcript Heating Planet

People are losing their homes from the advancing North Sea in UK. In this ClimateGenn Episode former Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Govt and Chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, Sir David King says,"The comment Tony Blair made I would look very carefully at where his funding is coming from." Expect record temperatures this year along with acceleration of climate warming. READ & WATCH: A Global Climate Solvency Plan- "This is looking quite scary!" Sir David King Speaks To Nick Breeze- transcript below:"One place where you can have this discussion and believe there's a lot of sanity around you is China, which is leading the way on this problem. We won't be able to insure homes if this continues might motivate needed changes." Nick Breeze ClimateGennNick Yt channel Description Joined Sep 20, 2009. "The changing climate and the human response to it are a movable feast and being independent means I can operate a from the horse's mouth interview policy. I seek out experts who can give us insights into this hugely complex situation we are in and I want to share these with you." 

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The city of Jakarta is if you like my worst case example- the north part of the city is now under seawater not for part of the year but for 12 months of the year- is going to be one of the first big cities to go underwater completely. And of course the people of Bangladesh are very much aware of flooding

Transcript 

It's interesting how Trump's policies are reversing the globalized economic system and that's what I'm discussing looks very dangerous. If you live in a city, you're extremely vulnerable anywhere because of what's happening elsewhere in the world. How do you get the food you need? How do you get the electricity you need? Etc., etc. We we depend on mining. We depend on food production. even though we're living comfortably in cities. So I think if I was putting out a plan for a family to escape into the future, it would be go into a high place in Africa and live off the land. You know, that's a a more likely a survival route than anywhere that depends on imports, whether over a large distance or a small distance, into where you're living.

In this Climate Genn episode, I speak with former chief scientific adviser to the UK government and chair of the climate crisis advisory group, Sir David King. The interview was initiated in response to Sir David being quoted in the Financial Times. The article reported on how people in the east of England are being forced to evacuate their homes due to erosion from inundation from seawater. A problem that is forecast to see thousands of homes abandoned in the coming years. We cover a lot of topics in this conversation, but they all illustrate the gargantuan size of the problem we face and how badly we humans are responding to challenges. 

For all the talk of artificial intelligence, the glaring truth is if we focused our collective real intelligence on solving these problems, the horrors accelerating around us might be greatly reduced and even manageable, if only. 

In the next episode, I'm speaking with former UK Green Party leader and British peer Baroness Natalie Bennett about the mainstream media narrative emerging, claiming that the UK Green Party have replaced environmental policy in order to appeal to the so-called farleft. Is this a radical shift for political opportunism or is there consistency with the Green Manifesto of the past? And how does it all hang together? There are more episodes scheduled with leading world experts on critical issues from collapsing ice sheets in Antarctica to how climate is changing all around us in real time. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who commented on the last interview with Dr. Jennifer Francis sharing thoughts and examples of how extreme impacts are affecting your regions and communities. Thank you very much. Please also continue to like, comment, and share. And you can also support this channel by becoming a member on Patreon or YouTube. But most of all, thank you for listening. I do try to reply to as many comments as I can possibly get to. Thank you very much. 

So, David, it's great to see you again. Thank you very much for taking the time. 

In the US, we've heard Dr. James Hansen talking about an acceleration of climate warming. https://open.substack.com/pub/jimehansen/p/runaway-climate-the-point-of-no-return?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email And then in a conversation I've recorded with Jennifer Francis, she talked about we should expect record temperatures this year with the El Nino that's forecast. And then just today I've been reading in the Financial Times you being quoted regarding people that are actually losing their homes from the advancing North Sea. and I just wanted to talk to you about what is actually happening down the east coast of England and why are residents being forced to abandon their homes. 

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DK: The interesting thing about the United Kingdom is that we're sitting on a geological plate and that geological plate has suffered in the past a collision and we're recovering from that collision and the east coast, this is going to be east in my story. The east coast is sinking, the west coast is rising. Right? So this this is Financial Times misquoted me on this. That is the basic problem with the coastline line along the east coast particularly around Norfolk and Suffolk. Add to that then rising sea levels. The west coast on the other hand is protected largely from rising sea levels because of this movement of the geological plate we're sitting on. So there's a real difference between east and west. 

Not enough is being done on this or any other part of the challenges of climate change to Great Britain. We need a comprehensive strategy on adapting to the changes that are bound to happen. And that's really my bottom line on this. I want to come back to the sort of national conversation in a minute. 

But in this article, I mean, Seizewell Sea, the nuclear facility, is kind of in the midst of all of this. And if you're saying it's sinking and sea levels are rising and they're expected to to keep rising, is there a risk that climate impacts might outrun the planning scenarios that they're doing for the safety of size? 

This is a very very critically important question. As it happens, size C is sitting there as an exemplar. But if if you ask me where we're headed into the future, the [UK] east coast is going to be severely flooded as we move forward in time. I'm sitting talking to you from Cambridge and we in Cambridge are a little bit close to sea level and we worry about returning to being an island in the middle of the swampy area around here. It is very likely to happen, I'm afraid, but it's going to take quite a few years before we get to that point. 

But nevertheless, I what I would emphasize is the need for a comprehensive strategy which looks to the future, looks at the worst possible outcomes and says, "What can we do?" We at CCAG have been working with cities around the world and I'm doing this work largely through the C40 group and the C40 group now has not 40 cities but 98 cities. So it's a comprehensive group. The chairman is the mayor of London and has been for a while and he's very effective in that position. And I've been trying to advise cities around the world on how to defend themselves against rising sea levels. 

Now, obviously London is one of those cities and our mayor is very much aware of this. The best example is actually the the mayor of Shanghai and what his office is doing. They have the biggest water pumps in the world already installed and the people of Shanghai are unaware of any flood risk because the water gets pumped away before they can be aware of it. So what they are doing is also looking at for example if they need to build a wall around the city to defend it from flooding as sea levels rise. Why not build the foundations for the wall first below the current sea level so that the people aren't too worried about this wall being built up and then you can quickly build the wall up when the need actually arises. When we discussed this with the mayoral office in the city of New York, they of course had this terrible hurricane that came through the city and the city was vacated. Nobody killed but the destruction of the city, many parts of the city from the floods that happened that time 2012 I guess this was they set in train the US Army Corps of Engineers to give them a plan. And it took them four years, cost a lot of money, and they produced a very good plan, I would say, but the [NY] plan involved building a wall around the city to protect it from flooding. And the city fathers decided that that was not a thing they could face up to. A wall rising from 10t above sea level to in some places 20t above sea level. They just felt they couldn't enclose the city by a wall of that kind. and they're still discussing what alternatives there are. Difficult to figure out what alternatives there are. 

Now, all I'm saying here is better to have a plan as in Shanghai than to sit back and say, "Well, that doesn't work. Let's try something else." And I say the same about the the east coast of of England. the sizable sea situation as we all know that they're putting a boulder wall around the sizable sea operation even before the construction starts and they can also build a wall because a boulder wall will still let some water in. 

So, but it would be the first defense and then a second wall would be a second defense. Now all of these things if you were EDF and owned sizable sea as it comes on stream you would want to make sure that it would operate for quite a few years to pay back the enormous investment in this capital that they are building the capital of nuclear energy in the UK. So I  think it would be silly to think that EDF is unaware of these problems. France is the country that is most aware of nuclear energy. 

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They have a very high percentage of their electricity from nuclear, the highest in the world as a percentage. And they are very much up to managing the whole nuclear debate. So I'm not too worried about where size E sea wall goes. 

I am very worried about what happens to our coastal defenses. I did see that they're planning a 14 m seaw wall. It's going to be like a an energy fortress. But you mentioned we need a strategy that encompasses all of these challenges. And if you take on the winter we've just had which has been terrible for farmers which adds on to these things like food security which we seem to be sailing a little bit blind. 

When you're going around talking to these cities from within the C40 or C90 plus group, are there conflicting voices? Because I mean I last week the Tony Blair Institute is advising that we open up the North Sea for more drilling and so on and we're sort of getting into this confusing national conversation about what's good, what's bad, what constitutes a sort of a secure future for the UK. How do you start to unpick that when you go to engage with these cities for example? 

I what is interesting is that the comment that Tony Blair made and I would look very carefully at where his funding is coming from and I say that because it's the billionaires who are stepping up and supporting Trump at the moment who are changing their positions on climate change. Very very surprising to see how many of them have changed their positions quite dramatically, and I'm really sorry to see Tony Blair following the same route because he and I worked so well, I think, together on the whole climate change issue. But the target of my comment is really I don't find any of that in people in cities that I've talked to. So for example, in Delhi, the problem is not the same. It's not a flooding problem. 

The problem with Delhi and other cities of that kind is where have they been dumping rubbish in the past 100 years plus and the answer is just outside the city. Now the city has encompassed this vast dump which is now mountainous and it which is now burning constantly. Right? So what you have is the attempt to clean up the air in Delhi by cutting out coal usage around the city being completely dwarfed by the awful fumes coming from this dump. 

Now we have talked to them what do you do about this enormous dump and there are things you can do. I mean it it is the same with the capital of Bangladesh where again they have a dump that dump outside the car. That dump was actually a water runoff from over saturation of the city so the city could run the water off into this valley. but also there's a river that comes around the city and if the water river was in flood it would flood into that flood plain. That plain is now no longer a valley. It's mountainous again with what has been dumped. So these are the kind of challenges that every city is faced with catching up with past bad practice and then also dealing with masses of unexpected unexpected not by the science community but unexpected by the city fathers. They are facing right up to the problem and anyone who says well don't worry about climate change they're not interested in that. What they have to do is try and handle the problem. 

The city of Jakarta is if you like my worst case example the north part of the city is now under seawater not for part of the year but for 12 months of the year. Jakarta is currently the capital but they've announced they're going to build a new capital across the water on a higher land. 

But what about the 15 to 16 million people living in Jakarta? What's been done for them? as far as we could gather nothing. Right? 

So there are real challenges because that city is going to be one of the first big cities to go underwater completely. And of course the people of Bangladesh are very much aware of flooding. They have a much better idea of what this is going to deliver to them. But nevertheless the challenges around the world. They're very similar. And one of the wonderful things about the C40 group of mayors is that they are exchanging best practice. All right? 

So where one gets the hang of it, the others can learn from these people. Every city is involved in this. Paris for example, perhaps unexpectedly. But what what we are now witnessing is a change in weather patterns. So if we look at Europe, Europe is seeing relatively arid periods during summer and then extreme rainfall during winter. So our whole pattern of weather systems is changing and it's changing quite dramatically. And while I'm talking about Europe, I just want to say the bad news about Europe is that while global warming today is 1.5° centigrade above the pre-industrial level average for the whole planet, Europe is heating up much more quickly. And so Europe is now at twice that figure. 

And the expectation from modeling, and I'm talking about modeling that hasn't really been changed for the last 20 years, the expectation from modeling is that we're heading towards a six degree temperature rise over the coming century in Europe, Central Europe. 

So all of these challenges are challenges that are known. And what I really want to stress is the science is there, but not many people are putting the messages across. the IPCC is now looking at some of these risks but the talk of tipping points for example- somebody needs to sit down and say how do we define a tipping point that has tipped. 

So for example, all of the information that we have from Greenland, all of the information from Greenland is now telling us over the last 10 years on average, Greenland has been losing ice at a rate of about 30 million tons an hour. Now clearly that means sea levels will rise much more quickly and that is actually happening. Now is it going to stop? We don't know, but we should surely be planning to either try and refreeze it, stop it in its tracks, keep the ice that is formed in the winter in place in in particular over the Arctic Sea cuz that's what protects Greenland from losing ice. There's so many things that need to be done and here Nick is the biggest challenge. We don't have a coherent comprehensive plan. We don't have what I would call and have called in print a planetary solvency plan. 

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a planetary solvency plan

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If we don't do this and Vietnam for example goes under seawater and I'm talking about the southern part of Vietnam where the Mekong Delta is where most of the rice paddy fields are the third biggest rice producing area in the world exporting most of it around the world under seawater. We're expecting now at least 2 or 3 months a year 90% of those patty fields will be under seawater by midentury. Now have we got on fails like this? And my theory is that Ian Mccur's plan to manage the situation where rice products in iatest book and I advise anyone who hasn't read it to read it. It's a magnificent account imagining himself a 100 years from now looking back on this terrible period we're going through. He envisages for example Russia US nuclear war emerging with a terrible situation where a bomb is dropped in the middle of the Atlantic causing tsunamis that sweep across Europe and Africa etc. It's not unrealistic given the direction of travel so for so many parts of the world. Nick, I'm not a pessimist. I am a a born optimist and I will carry this to my grave that there has to be a plan and we can manage it. 

Yeah. Part of the problem is that as we think about now with this forthcoming El Nino, just to sort of make it a bit more right there on our doorstep, is that we're seeing this heat wave in the Atlantic already and it's the evaporation that drives so much rain and so on. What would a plan look like to counter something like the problems we're having with the Atlantic, with Greenland, which you've referenced? You talked about refreezing it. I mean, we're finding it very difficult to have a conversation amongst ourselves in the UK. 

20.00

The US has kind of started to roll backwards. I don't want to get too bleak on politics, but you can see the way that it's becoming very difficult to hold conversations. Have you seen things that are giving you some of the optimism that you can share? 

I mean so the first thing is that the one place where you can have this discussion and believe there's a lot of sanity around you is China. So let's not forget that China is leading the way on this problem and I visit China more than anywhere else if only to raise my level of optimism again. 

But the challenge of another El Nino, the last El Nino produced a dramatic rise in the average global temperature and exceeding 1.5 over a shorter period of time. But nevertheless, it should have been followed by La Nina, which should have cooled it down again, but we never quite saw that. So, here we are heading into a second El Nino while the temperature is still hovering at that 1.5 above the pre-industrial level point. And that is a real danger cuz we are then likely to hit something like possibly 1.6 1.7° and even possibly higher. So, what what what do we what do we do about this? 

So what the climate crisis advisory group has always tried to do is put out a comprehensive policy that can manage all these awful changes that are happening. Now you mentioned rising rainfall as a result of increased moisture in the air. One of the dreadful things that happened over that period, the last Elnino, was the rise in the average temperature of the surface water of the oceans. And that was dramatic. It was more dramatic by far than the average rise in atmospheric temperatures. And of course, up goes the moisture in the air, down comes the heavy rainfall in the rainy seasons. 

What do we do? Is there any way we could quickly reduce the global average temperature actually by acting? And the answer is yes. One of the biggest challenges today is that the world is still focused on one greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and that is the major problem. Carbon dioxide levels rising is causing all these other changes that occur. Water vapor increasing in the atmosphere is also a serious greenhouse gas. So there's another feedback effect as we warm the surface of the oceans. So surface temperatures keep rising with all these effects. But there's another factor which is methane levels. And methane levels are rising much more rapidly. And one of one of the reasons for this is simply that the amount of methane that is coming naturally from areas that are basically wetlands is rising. Now that's rising because the temperature is rising. All right? So we get an increase in methane emissions and methane we estimate is responsible for about 30% of global warming that has happened since the industrial revolution. 

Now for the first period that was pretty minimal. But now because methane levels are rising so rapidly we're not at 427 parts per million. That's carbon dioxide. We're at 535 is our estimate if you add in methane. So we've already doubled the greenhouse gases from 275 in the pre-industrial period to the present time. So what do we do? Methane has a short halflife in the atmosphere. Meaning that in 10 12 years the amount of methane if we stopped all emissions would be reduced dramatically. Right? So can we reduce methane levels sufficiently? Now we can't do that with the natural causes. The wetlands must continue to be wet, continue to be methane emitters. But what what can we do about the causes the human causes? This is energy, agriculture and waste in that order. And the answer is we can focus on each of those. And we have been going around the world trying to persuade countries focus on reducing methane emissions. 

We had two satellites, one American and one European, that were designed to pick up methane emissions. So we get a a top-down view of where methane emissions are occurring. And so I can tell you that we know from the Euroat that most of our methane emissions are coming from old coal mines. They are still emitting methane. If we go to South Africa- and I went out there and had this conversation on the president's climate committee- again their biggest emissions are not only from old coal mines but from existing coal mines. 

So if we can reduce emissions and this is a relatively cheap operation. Capture the methane burn it to make electricity that's fine. Carbon dioxide is far less potent than methane per molecule. So we believe it's possible to reduce emissions of methane, the human emissions by something like 40% over a 15-year period. 40% over 15 years and we could reduce global temperatures by.3° centigrade because the methane levels in the atmosphere will also follow that reduction quite quickly. So there's a sort of emergency brake that we can put on that is reducing methane emissions globally and that's a part of what should be an international program and by the way Nick we cannot manage this without an international program. 

Now the climate crisis advisory group we are relatively small group we don't have the power that is needed to drive this through. We can go and visit country after country, but it is critically important to get a global body that sets out a strategy to have a manageable future for humanity. That's what we need is a comprehensive strategy. We know we've got to reduce emissions deeply and rapidly. And by the way, we used to talk 2015 language. We used to talk about having a carbon budget left as if it was safe to carry on emitting any carbon dioxide or methane. We haven't got a carbon budget left. We've put too much up there already. So, I've just said 535 parts per million. We've got to bring that down to 350 parts per million or less to have a safe future for humanity. doesn't look good at the moment. 

But I believe if we can have a strategy set out comprehensively by a body of people who are recognized as experts and who understand the social conditions required for the transition. I think it's perfectly possible that humanity would then back that plan together as things get worse and worse. watch this El Nino year. That's where this little part of our conversation began. But you're quite right. This is looking quite scary. 

Yeah, it is looking scary. 

And you you've actually answered my last question there with the laying out a whole agenda, which is very which is good. But and at the beginning you when we talked about the Tony Blair Institute and you you said you know look at the funding and there's a very small number of these billionaires who are who are dominating the international conversation with all kinds of noise but what we actually need is a counter to that and it sounds like the you know you're traveling around speaking to all these people. 

China has definitely been making remarkable progress. How does is how do we bring that into a sort of a concrete coherent counternarrative for the future? I mean I think that's really the challenge we seem to be arriving at. 

The original hope and that was certainly my hope was that we could predict what challenges we were faced with. We could predict how temperatures would rise and impact on human humans dying from severe heat stress. we could predict rising sea levels, all of these things. And but we didn't have to test the prediction because we knew what to do to avoid it. We're no longer in that luxurious situation. So now I believe the only future lies when people become aware of the fact that the unusual things that are happening unusual never happened before. When did Los Angeles ever before have a fire that destroyed a major part of the very wealthy part of that city? Right? And was that by any chance due to climate change? Right? So when people can make that connection then I believe we're going to move forward in time and this is exactly why actually-

30.00

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A possible communication plan: We won't be able to insure you if this continues

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Since 2015 I've been trying to work with the actuaries who are based in the insurance and reinsurance world and these are people who really understand how to analyze risk in a way that I as a scientist don't. I want everything I do and say to be very accurate. But these guys can tell you the probability of your house burning down so that they can give you an insurance policy that is realistic. So I I think when we talk to the acties and I mentioned the the work that they're doing the planetary solvency recovery plan and I've been working with them again on that. That is a plan which says we won't be able to insure people if this continues. We yes every year we put up prices based on our analysis of risk going forward in time but we only do that at the beginning of a year and we look at the end of the year to see what the risks will be. So annually they're pushing up prices but they are also saying there are areas we cannot insure. There's awful statistics coming out about the number of homes that have been constructed in the last 5 years in Britain that are in floodplains. Those are uninsurable going forward in time. So the solvency crisis begins with lack of insurance but it also begins with the fact that loss and damage year on year this is the critical number from last year where the estimate is around half a trillion dollars. The estimate that we published in our latest planetary solvery plan is that this will rise to 10 to 15 trillion dollars a year by 2050. Right? 

So if you if you look at that, that means you're losing 10 to 15% of global GDP each year in the form of loss and damage. It's insane. puts the crisis of 2008, the bank solveny crisis, that puts it way into the background as something that wasn't very important. Yeah. And we used to discuss with the late Salhak about loss and damage and it was always in the context of the climate vulnerable nations. 

Now we see that the globe is one big climate vulnerable entity and we're not able to even discuss it properly. You know it's kind of we need to radically shift on how we're talking about thinking about what we're voting on the policies and everything. It's interesting how Trump's policies are reversing the the globalized economic system. And that's what I'm discussing looks very dangerous. If you live in a city, you're extremely vulnerable anywhere because of what's happening elsewhere in the world. How do you get the food you need? How do you get the electricity you need? Etc., etc. We depend on mining. We depend on food production even though we're living comfortably in cities. So I think if I was putting out a plan for a family to escape into the future, it would be go to a high place in Africa and live off the land. You know, that's that's a a more likely a survival route than anywhere that depends on imports, whether over a a large distance or a small distance into where you're living. 

What is the the next step for CCAG, the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, in everything you've been talking about and looking forward into this year? 

We've highlighted it. is a tricky year, but what's what's on the work agenda? Right. So, we we've got a a good number of strands to our work now, and deep and rapid emissions reduction. We got to manage that. We've got to bring down levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. How can we encourage research in the wealthy countries into that area? Britain, interestingly, is developing research in those areas perhaps more than anywhere else. So, we are doing well there. 

We are focused heavily on persuading countries that everything is changing and we need to prepare ourselves for a changed future and that means adapting creating resilience locally. We need to do all those things and at the same time we need to be talking to leaders and we're talking about leaders in in both the business sector and in the political sector. 

Now the most important thing that happened I believe in in COP 30 in Brazil was the formation of the 80 plus group of nations it was 82 nations that formed this progressive group of countries that are meeting in April this year in Bogota in Colombia and under the watchful eye of the president of Colombia I really admire what he's doing on that and that group of 80 nations is potentially very powerful powerful. By which I mean if they were all to massively reduce their dependence on oil, coal and gas, we could see that we would starve the companies that depend on those markets of the finance that they need. So it it could be quite effective. 

So I'm putting quite a lot of faith in that group. They are quite a heterogeneous group. 

But Nick, you will probably know that Kenya has made amazing advances in renewable energy, the highest apart from Norway, the second highest level of renewable energy of for electricity on the grid in the world; and just 7 years ago that was practically zero. And they've done this by bringing in geothermal and geothermal energy along the rift valley in Africa where the two parts of Africa are shifting apart and where humanity began. That area is just ripe for geothermal energy. They're putting Kenyans to work. They are no longer importing coal and gas to make electricity. It's all good for their economy. 

This is such an important message that the countries in that 80 plus group which include China but I now my little caveat on the 80 plus group it doesn't include India. Prime Minister Modi went back to the original arguments being made before he became prime minister in India which is the developed nations created this problem and they should deal with it before we should do anything. Now this is unbelievable from a prime minister who came in and said we will solarize India from top to bottom. Both China and India by the way 2025 good news reduced their dependence on coal both China and India. So India's been making lots of progress. I am off to India next month and this is the final answer to your question on a CCAG mission to India to try and persuade them to join the 80 plus group because if you've got China, India, most of Europe, the United Kingdom, countries like South Africa, Australia in the group, you've got a potential for taking the whole issue forward comprehensively if if possible, and that's what we're going to try and influence. 

But in any case, give hope to the world. Yeah, it'll be good to see how this all pans out because this is exactly what we do need. If you are concerned about the future, then why not travel with me through every Cobb conference from COP 21 in Paris to COP 28 in Dubai by ordering my book Copout: How Governments Have Failed  the People on Climate. In copout, you'll gain insights into what is actually going on in these supposed world-saving  conferences and how we have ended up in this dire era of dangerous consequences.  You can order a copout via the link in the notes or on any online bookstore worldwide in paperback or audio version. ***https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2E5xOGC-_k&t=137s 

Recommended to Read:

James Hansen Substack Runaway Climate: The Point of No Return James Hansen 6 March 2026 https://open.substack.com/pub/jimehansen/p/runaway-climate-the-point-of-no-return?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

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