Australia’s wildfires may hold a lesson or two for a smoky US

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Key Points

If you were looking for a silver lining in the cloud of smoke thats descended on New York this week as wildfires raged through Canadas forests, consider the effect a similar natural disaster in 2019 and 2020 had on the politics of climate on the opposite side of the world...

A country that vies with Indonesia and Qatar as the biggest exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas, its leaders have spent decades blocking environmental action..

A perception that Labor was not supportive of the mining industry," due to its equivocal stance on Indian billionaire Gautam Adanis Carmichael coal project, cost the party votes in regions dependent on digging up solid fuel, according to the partys post-mortem into the election..

Although support for new coal mines in Australia fell from 45.3% to 37% after the bushfires, those who had backed the industry beforehand and were subsequently directly affected by smoke and fire were more, rather than less likely, to favour them..

A 2019 analysis of 73 separate studies on public opinion and climate experiences found that extreme weather only had a weak effect on peoples views, far less than traditional factors such as underlying partisanship..

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