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Human-caused climate change increased the likelihood and intensity of the hot, dry and windy conditions that fanned the flames of the recent devastating Southern California wildfires, a scientific study found. But the myriad of causes that go into the still smoldering fires are complex, so the level of global warming's fingerprints on weeks of burning appears relatively small compared to previous studies of killer heat waves, floods and droughts by the international team at World Weather Attribution. Tuesday's report, too rapid for peer-review yet, found global warming boosted the likelihood of high fire weather conditions in this month's fires by 35% and its intensity by 6%.

Wildfires that blazed around the world in 2024 helped to drive a record annual leap in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, surprising scientists. The data shows humanity is moving yet deeper into a dangerous world of supercharged extreme weather.

Extreme heat affecting nearly 23m people across US south-west and pushing Texas’s electrical grid to the limit.

Unprecedented wildfires in Canada and parts of Amazonia last year were at least three times more likely due to climate change and contributed to high levels of CO2 emissions from burning globally, according to the first edition of a new systematic annual review.

Blackened trees, dead animals and scorched earth – early wildfires have already devastated Brazil’s Pantanal and local people worry they may lose the battle to save them

Scientists warn of ‘scary’ feedback loop in which fires create more heating, which causes more fires worldwide

As we mark 100 days until the COP28 UN climate summit, the urgency of addressing the climate crisis has never been more palpable. Global failures to mitigate emissions and adapt to the impacts continue to wreak havoc on the planet, and we’re seeing this in a range of ways. Unprecedented extreme weather events have occurred with frightening regularity in 2023. In March, over 500 people lost their lives when Cyclone Freddy struck Malawi. Last month, flooding in the Philippines caused by Typhoons Doksuri and Khanun displaced more than 300,000 people, and the recent wildfires that ravaged Hawaii – in part exacerbated by climate change – continue to make for distressing headlines. This list is likely to become even longer by the end of the year, when COP28 gets underway in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Three brush fires burning in rural areas across Riverside county, where 1,000 homes are under evacuation orders

Carbon dioxide emissions from wildfires, which have been gradually increasing since 2000, spiked drastically to a record high in 2021, according to an international team of researchers led by Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine.

The Bootleg Fire is raging through a project in southern Oregon, where 400,000 acres of forest owned by Green Diamond Resource Co. are being preserved to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere. Microsoft in February paid Green Diamond to offset a quarter million tons of the tech giant’s 2021 carbon emissions.Two other wildfires are active within a Colville Indian Reservation carbon project in eastern Washington.