Heatwaves threaten the health of Australians and our politicians do not do enough

Extreme heat affects both the mental health of Australians and unemployment. Yet, Australia's climate change measures are lagging behind other high-income countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom.

In the approach of another summer, Australia faces the inevitability of deadly heat waves. Our report published today in the Medical Journal of Australia concludes that political inaction, especially at the federal level, puts Australian lives at risk.

The report, the MJA – Lancet Countdown to health and climate change: the inaction of Australian politics threatens lives, builds on an earlier publication in The lancet medical journal, which concluded that climate change is the world's largest health threat of the 21st century.

Australia is the first to prepare its own report at the national level. Developed in partnership with Lancet Countdown – which tracks the global links between health and climate change – it adopts the structure and methods of global assessment, but with an Australian focus.

How is the health of Australians

Australians are already facing climate change exposures due to rising annual average temperatures, heat waves and weather disasters. Deaths in Australia during the 2014 Adelaide heat wave and Melbourne storm of asthma in 2016 are examples of the risks that climate poses to our health.

Our report was produced by a team of 19 experts from 13 universities and research institutes. Our goal was to respond to what we know about climate change and human health in Australia and how we respond to this threat, if at all.

To do this, our team examined more than 40 indicators to track progress on the broad and complex issue of climate change and human health. Health impact indicators included health effects of changes in temperature and heat waves, work capacity, trends in climate-sensitive diseases, lethality of climate-related disasters , food insecurity and malnutrition.

We have also developed an indicator of the impacts of climate change on mental health. This involved examining the association between average annual maximum temperatures and suicide rates in all states and territories over the past decade.

We found that in most countries, the suicide rate increased with the increase in maximum temperature. In Australia's changing climate, we urgently need to find ways to break the link between extreme weather and suicide.

Among the other indicators, we found that workers' compensation claims in Adelaide increased by 6.2% during heatwaves, mainly among outdoor male workers and more tradespeople. 55 years old.

And we found that the length of heat waves increased in 2016 and 2017 in the three largest Australian cities – Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The length of the heat wave varied from one year to the next, but between 2000 and 2017, the average number of heat wave days increased by more than two days across the country.

Political action we need

Australia's slow transition to renewable energy and low-carbon electricity generation is a problem, not just from a climate change perspective. Our report shows that pollutants from fossil fuel combustion cause thousands of premature deaths every year across the country. We argue that even a premature death is one more death when we can do a lot to solve this problem.

Australia is one of the richest countries in the world with the resources and technical expertise to act on climate change and health. Australia's carbon intensity however is the highest among the countries included in our comparison: Germany, the United States, China, India and Brazil.

A carbon-intensive energy system is one of the main drivers of climate change. Australia was once a leader in the use of renewable energy, but other countries have since taken a lead and are reaping the benefits of their savings, energy security and health.

Despite some progress in increasing renewable energy production, it is time we really weighed in the global effort to prevent accelerating climate change.

Politicians must take steps to protect the health and lives of people. These include strong political and financial commitments to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and low carbon electricity generation. The government lacks detailed planning for a clean future with secure energy supply.

Our MDY-Lancet The countdown will be updated each year. Now that Australia has begun to systematically monitor the effects of climate change on health – and given its poor performance compared to globally comparable economies – another inaction would be reckless.

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