Australia is about to hold its first federal election since record-breaking bushfires

fuelled at least in part by intense heat and drought and made worse by climate change.

Bames have been reported to have reached 70 meters high, but these pictures from Monday

show huge blazes in the state of Victoria. The plume of smoke generated by the inferno

covers 5.5 million square kilometres. That's the size of Europe.

The fires finally died out just over two years ago after burning for nearly a year across 60 million

acres.

Around the world, the fires were covered as a wake-up call on climate change,

but in Australia, the government under Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison

has seemed more concerned with putting a positive spin on its climate record in the lead-up to

this weekend's election. Soon after the fires, the government proposed a gas-fired recovery

from the pandemic, and in 2020, Australia became the world's biggest exporter of gas,

with the government scrambling to fast-track projects including fracking on indigenous lands

and offshore drilling. To help sell its expansion into gas, the Morrison government has

invested in promoting new technologies, including carbon capture and storage, and a product

it calls clean hydrogen, made from coal and gas.

In the lead-up to the election, the government ran an unprecedented ad campaign,

branding its investment in new technologies as positive energy.

Australia's making positive energy, and there's more on the way. We've put solar panels here,

and there, in fact, more than one in four homes have solar, right?

The slogan is weirdly similar to the theme of this week's Australian petroleum production

and exploration associations conference, positive energy for a changing world.

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