Australia needs a greater sense of urgency in tackling greenhouse gas emissions, including in the health sector, a new climate change score card has found.
The MJA-Lancet Countdown on health and climate change also found good progress at both a government and community level.
The article, co-authored by Associate Professor Paul Beggs from Macquarie University, praised the Australian Government’s move to release the country’s first National Health and Climate Strategy and welcomed the Western Australian Government’s preparation of a Health Sector Adaptation Plan.
The Countdown, established in 2017, provides annual updates on progress tackling emissions, tracking 25 indicators across five broad areas.
The MJA-Lancet Countdown highlighted the health and economic costs of inaction of health and climate change, with one example being major flooding in eastern Australia in 2022 which directly caused the deaths of 23 people, displaced thousands of people and cost $7.1 billion.
It also stated the urgency of the need to improve Australia’s mitigation and adaption responses.
“Australia’s energy system, and its health care sector, currently emit an unreasonable and unjust proportion of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” the article said.
- Sam Hunt