this is bbc news. we will have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. surface temperatures at the moment, somewhere between 87 and 95 degrees.

so many people don't think that climate change is real. itjust was extremely hot and everyone was starting to get worried, day by day, until it happened. temperatures will climb well into the 40s, making conditions even worse on ourfire grounds. the footage that i took

of the fire was shot on the gopro that i had actually got for christmas five days before the event. it was on a very hot day to begin with, so that made the fire, i think, a lot more aggressive. in the afternoon, i got the first glimpse of the fire coming over one of the mountains in front of us. it's so much smokier over there. it then started behind our house and i was just standing up there, thinking, "bleep, this is happening. "i need to get off the roof now and start fighting." whoa, kangaroo! ok, it's coming this way! should i get the other pump going? what? what should i do? the fire was just too intense

and out of my control. dad! and if india had been in earshot at the time, i was wanting her to get into that fire shelter and just give up. n-s — we've done the best we can. oh, no! no, no, no! it did get really intense and i thought we were going to lose the house. um...but itjust calmed down for a second and the fire kept going up the mountain. oh, yeah. it has completely and utterly changed the landscape here for the rest of my life, if not forever.

as far as any of the tall trees, mostly all of them have been wiped out. we are right still in the middle of the heatwave, so as we head into the christmas period... that is what happens when you wake at 5:30am! so there's very strong evidence — irrefutable evidence, in fact — that the climate of australia has changed, especially over the last 50 or 70 years. i specialise in heatwaves

so i study how heatwaves have changed over time and what is causing those changes. i have a 2—year—old and a 4—year—old daughter. it really bothers me that the world that they're experiencing now is a lot different to my childhood. i've experienced days of 45 and 47 degrees celsius and that was appalling. it was atrocious. you couldn't do anything. the only way we could stay cool in western sydney was to have the air con running all day, and that was a really hard thing for me to do. during my first pregnancy, it was so hot that i actually struggled to go and put the washing on the line. while i was literally about to bring this child into the world, i was thinking, what would summers be like for her in the future? it was the hottest day ever recorded in the sydney basin.

incredibly, the mercury rising to almost 49 degrees. because population increase in sydney is continuing, it is spreading out west. the australian dream, where you had your half acre or acre block and your own house — this australian dream could become, basically, australia's nightmare. you need a car to actually get from your house to work, because we are also not providing work where you live, you have to commute. also, there are no shops. people living indoors and you don't see anyone outside, i don't see any kids playing outside. they even put black roofs on top of these houses and then they build them so close together that you have no more space left to actually put trees in, which is crazy when you think of the next 20 or 30 years when we know

it is getting hotter out there. in australia, we're producing our energy to a large proportion by burning fossil fuels, meaning we're producing more co2 by having all these air—conditioning units running high, flat—out. but there could be simple changes made, and these changes relate to materials. one of the projects where we are demonstrating change is the cool rhodes trail. let's take the heat—stress trekkers and put them out in this cool street, and we'll collect some measurements on this stinking hot day. this yellow concrete is only at about 60 degrees, so nearly 10 degrees cooler than the asphaltjust out on the road, which is 70—72 degrees. it is quite interesting. they removed all the bitumen and you can see the different surface materials bringing in the verges, planting more trees, so i think it's a great idea. beyond 42 degrees, mortality increases substantially.

this is what climate change looks like, ladies and gentlemen. in november2018, up to one—third of the entire australian spectre of flying fox population just died — in a matter of two days. in two hot afternoons. just like that. so, over the last few years, we've begun installing sprinklers in flying fox camps in the hope that they can prevent some of the worst of the mortality. the international report has australia last when it comes to policies that protect the climate,

trailing countries like russia, iran and china. if he said we were doing better than anyone else, he must have looked at the table upside down. our goal is to reach net zero emissions as soon as possible, and preferably by 2050. we're not going to reduce our emissions to 2 degrees warming by the end of this century. i know that we're probably going to reach 3 or 4 degrees, and i know what that means for how many more heatwaves we're going to see and how much hotter those heatwaves will be. sweetheart, you're meant to be unpacking, not packing! as a scientist, i know how bad the future looks.

i understand that, i comprehend all that, that's what i do for a living. but as a mum, as a person, i guess, as a human being, i really struggle with just how bad those impacts will be. i'm worried for my future. i'm worried that this house won't be here in another five years, and i'm worried that no—one really cares enough to do anything. so, what plants do you think we should plant in our backyard in our new house? strawberries. - you want strawberries? the brand—new house is going to be awesome. we're going to make it energy efficient and we're going to have lots of solar panels and a white roof

and lots of insulation and it's going to be oriented the right way and we will have an electric car, when we can buy it. i know we've caused some problems, and i know we also hold the key to the solutions. what else do you like to eat that you think we can grow in our yard? how about some apples? ooh, mummy likes apples!

hello there. the weather isn't changing in too much of a hurry over

the next few days, because high pressure keeping things dry, settled, and very mild still for this time of year. so another mild and quite breezy day to come on thursday. dry weather for most of us, but not everywhere. we have got this weather front sitting close to the north of scotland, so that'll produce outbreaks of rain mainly for northern and western scotland, but high pressure to the south dominating the weather for most places. and, with that high pressure, we're drawing in winds in a south—westerly direction, so bringing the mild air and the orange colours really right across the uk. might be a bit of a chilly start for some southern and eastern parts of england first thing, the odd misty patch around. generally, the cloud will increase from the west through the day, but there will be some spells of sunshine for east anglia and the southeast, up towards eastern scotland, as well. still a bit of rain to come for the northwest of scotland, but the breeze blowing over the mountains is likely to create something called a foehn effect, lifting temperatures to around 17 celsius for aberdeenshire. widely 14—15 the top temperature — and compare that to the average temperature this time of year of only about nine celsius, so well above average. it'll be windy again particularly in the northwest,

with gusts of wind about 40 mph, but lighter winds further south. so through thursday evening now and heading overnight into friday, it'll be a pretty cloudy picture. a bit of low cloud and hill fog likely, some drizzle around some coastal hills in the west once again. but it will be a very mild and certainly frost—free start to friday morning, but we've still got that rain continuing across the western isles and northern highland, as well. into friday, no great changes — there's that weather front across the north of scotland, there's the high pressure in charge for most places. so quite a cloudy picture, i think, but predominantly dry through the day on friday, away from the north and northwest of scotland where we've got that weather front continuing to bring outbreaks of rain. temperatures again getting up to 14—15, even 16 celsius through the foehn effect once again through the east of scotland. it won't last forever, this mild weather, though — into the weekend, saturday, we'll see a cold front moving south across the northern half of the uk. into sunday, that slips its way further south, and it'll introduce the blue colours, the colder air mass with these northerly winds moving across all areas. so gradually through the weekend, things will be turning colder. we'll still look at temperatures in double figures through the day on saturday but, by the time we get to sunday, things will be noticeably cooler — maybe time to dig

out the winter coat. bye for now.

welcome to bbc news. i'm mark lobel. our top stories: two men convicted of the murder of the us civil rights leader malcolm x more than 50 years ago are set to be exonerated. as poland says a thousand migrants are still gathered at the frontier with belarus, we look at the human cost of the border crisis. alec baldwin is described as reckless in a new lawsuit over the fatal film set shooting of a cinematographer working on the film rust. in ouropinion, mr in our opinion, mr baldwin shows to play russian roulette when he fired a gun without checking it. we have a special interview with dame barbara woodward, britain's permanent representative

to the united nations.