Australia was the first country in the world to officially ban old fashioned incandescent light bulbs as a solution to climate change but was it a good idea? In fact does anything we do in Australia really make any difference?
Publically accessible pollution databases, such as the Australian National Pollutant Inventory, contain information on chemical emissions released by industrial facility and diffuse sources. They are meant to enable public scrutiny of industrial activity, which in turn, is meant to lead to industries reducing their pollution. In Australia, however, concerns have been consistently raised that this process is not occurring. To assess whether Australia's National Pollutant Inventory is fulfilling its legislated goals, we examined the accuracy and consistency of the largest facility and diffuse source of airborne lead, a major pollutant of concern for public health. Our analysis found that the emissions estimates provided by the Inventory were not accurate and were not consistent with other sources of emissions within the Inventory, potentially distorting any user interpretation of emissions estimates provided by the National Pollutant Inventory. We conclude that for at least these important public health pollution sources, the Inventory does not fulfil its legislated goals.
In: Bulletin of the World Health Organization: the international journal of public health = Bulletin de l'Organisation Mondiale de la Santé, Band 94, Heft 10, S. 759-765
In: Zhang , Y , Beggs , P J , Bambrick , H , Berry , H L , Linnenluecke , M K , Trueck , S , Alders , R , Bi , P , Boylan , S M , Green , D , Guo , Y , Hanigan , I C , Hanna , E G , Malik , A , Morgan , G G , Stevenson , M , Tong , S , Watts , N & Capon , A G 2018 , ' The MJA-lancet countdown on health and climate change : Australian policy inaction threatens lives ' , The Medical Journal of Australia , vol. 209 , no. 11 , pp. 474.e1-474.e21 . https://doi.org/10.5694/mja18.00789
Climate plays an important role in human health and it is well established that climate change can have very significant impacts in this regard. In partnership with The Lancet and the MJA, we present the inaugural Australian Countdown assessment of progress on climate change and health. This comprehensive assessment examines 41 indicators across five broad sections: climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability; adaptation, planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. These indicators and the methods used for each are largely consistent with those of the Lancet Countdown global assessment published in October 2017, but with an Australian focus. Significant developments include the addition of a new indicator on mental health. Overall, we find that Australia is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on health, and that policy inaction in this regard threatens Australian lives. In a number of respects, Australia has gone backwards and now lags behind other high income countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Examples include the persistence of a very high carbon-intensive energy system in Australia, and its slow transition to renewables and low carbon electricity generation. However, we also find some examples of good progress, such as heatwave response planning. Given the overall poor state of progress on climate change and health in Australia, this country now has an enormous opportunity to take action and protect human health and lives. Australia has the technical knowhow and intellect to do this, and our annual updates of this assessment will track Australia's engagement with and progress on this vitally important issue.
In: Beggs , P J , Zhang , Y , Bambrick , H , Berry , H L , Linnenluecke , M K , Trueck , S , Bi , P , Boylan , S M , Green , D , Guo , Y , Hanigan , I C , Johnston , F H , Madden , D L , Malik , A , Morgan , G G , Perkins-Kirkpatrick , S , Rychetnik , L , Stevenson , M , Watts , N & Capon , A G 2019 , ' The 2019 report of the MJA–Lancet Countdown on health and climate change : a turbulent year with mixed progress ' , The Medical Journal of Australia , vol. 211 , no. 11 , pp. 490-491.e21 . https://doi.org/10.5694/mja2.50405
The MJA–Lancet Countdown on health and climate change was established in 2017 and produced its first Australian national assessment in 2018. It examined 41 indicators across five broad domains: climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability; adaptation, planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. It found that, overall, Australia is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on health, and that policy inaction in this regard threatens Australian lives. In this report we present the 2019 update. We track progress on health and climate change in Australia across the same five broad domains and many of the same indicators as in 2018. A number of new indicators are introduced this year, including one focused on wildfire exposure, and another on engagement in health and climate change in the corporate sector. Several of the previously reported indicators are not included this year, either due to their discontinuation by the parent project, the Lancet Countdown, or because insufficient new data were available for us to meaningfully provide an update to the indicator. In a year marked by an Australian federal election in which climate change featured prominently, we find mixed progress on health and climate change in this country. There has been progress in renewable energy generation, including substantial employment increases in this sector. There has also been some progress at state and local government level. However, there continues to be no engagement on health and climate change in the Australian federal Parliament, and Australia performs poorly across many of the indicators in comparison to other developed countries; for example, it is one of the world's largest net exporters of coal and its electricity generation from low carbon sources is low. We also find significantly increasing exposure of Australians to heatwaves and, in most states and territories, continuing elevated suicide rates at higher temperatures. ...