A haze of smoke has made the skies over Bondi Beach look more like those in New Delhi. The death toll has risen.  Bushfires have raged across Australia amid a heatwave that has sent temperatures soaring to record levels more common in the Middle East. The scale of the country’s  wildfire emergency has few precedents. But it has been exacerbated by a regrettable lack of leadership from the prime minister, Scott Morrison. Beyond Australia’s shores, his government stands as a reproach to any leaders tempted to follow its lamentable response to the deepening threat of climate change.

Mr Morrison has long been a cheerful volunteer in the divisive climate battles that have ravaged the political landscape in Australia, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters. One of his predecessors, Tony Abbott, made history in 2014 by repealing a national carbon tax. Mr Morrison made international news himself in 2017 when as Treasurer, he brandished a lump of coal on the floor of the parliament to taunt critics he claimed had a “pathological fear” of the fuel. 

He became prime minister last year after a coup in his centre-right Liberal party ousted the cosmopolitan former investment banker Malcolm Turnbull, whose agenda had included a greener energy policy. This year, Mr Morrison confounded expectations by leading his coalition government to yet another election victory, having campaigned in favour of a vast Queensland coal mine.