Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s decision to deny any possible climate change link to the new South Wales Bushfires is catching heat from one of the world’s highest-profile climate change activist – Former US Vice President and Nobel Prize Winner Al Gore.

“Bushfires can occur naturally, and do, but the science shows clearly that when the temperature goes up, and when the vegetation and soils dry out, then wildfires become more pervasive and more dangerous,” he told ABC television late Wednesday.

Gore commented after PM Tony Abbott argued that fires were simply “part of the Australian experience. It has been since humans were on this continent”, without acknowledging that these once-in-a-century disasters – floods, fires, record high temperatures – seem to be coming along quite rapidly these days.  More than 200 homes have been lost during this “Australian experience”.

Gore likened Abbott's insistence that wildfires are not linked to climate change to the tobacco industry claiming smoking does not cause lung cancer.

“It reminds me of politicians here who got a lot of support from the tobacco companies and who argued to the public that there was absolutely no connection between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer,” he said.

“For 40 years the tobacco companies were able to persuade pliant politicians within their grip to tell the public what they wanted them to tell them, and for 40 years the tragedy continued.”