The terrible fires that have killed at least 135 people, and the number is rising, and destroyed towns and communities in my home state of Victoria in Australia is a warning to the rest of the world. Like all Australians, I am devastated by what we have seen and experienced here. But this is a sign of thing to come with climate change.

Last year, the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre issued a report identifying the south-east region of Australia, southern California and southern France as the three most vulnerable areas in the world to bushfire. Climate change is expected to increase the number of extreme temperature days, the kind that saw temperatures here rise to 46 degrees Celsius (115 Fahrenheit) just before the bushfire erupted. There is research suggesting that the number of days when bushfires pose an extreme risk in southeastern Australia could almost double by 2050.

And it's a trend happening around the world. As this WWF report says, we can expect to see more climate extremes, more droughts, floods, hurricanes and fires.

No doubt governments and politicians will play it down. They are far more focused on the global financial crisis but that's ignoring the obvious and they are in denial. However terrible the financial meltdown might be, it's never destroyed houses, towns and lives.