BILLINGS, Montana, Feb 23 (BNA): Global warming and changes in land use patterns mean that more wildfires will burn large parts of the world in the coming decades, causing higher rates of unhealthy smoke pollution and other problems that are not Governments are ready for it. The confrontation, according to a United Nations report released Wednesday.
The western United States, northern Siberia, central India and eastern Australia are already seeing more fires, and the likelihood of catastrophic wildfires globally could increase by more than 50% by the turn of the century, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Program.
Areas that were considered safe from major fires will not be safe, including the Arctic, which the report said was “very likely to see a significant increase in burning,” the Associated Press reports.
The report concluded that the tropical forests of Indonesia and the southern Amazon in South America are likely to experience an increase in wildfires.
“Destructive and uncontrollable bushfires are becoming an expected part of seasonal calendars in many parts of the world,” said Andrew Sullivan of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia, one of the report’s authors.
But UN researchers said many countries are still spending too much time and money fighting fires and are not adequately trying to prevent them. Changes in land use could make fires worse, the report said, such as logging that leaves behind debris that can easily burn and forests that are deliberately ignited to clear land for agriculture.
In the United States, officials recently unveiled a $50 billion effort to reduce fire risk over the next decade by increasing forest thinning around “hotspots” where nature and neighborhoods collide. However, President Joe Biden’s administration has so far identified only a small portion of the funding required in the plan.
UN researchers also called for greater awareness of the dangers of smoke inhalation, which can affect tens of millions of people annually as plumes of major wildfires drift thousands of miles across international borders.