New advisory group to help reduce climate impacts on health

The federal government has established the Climate and Health Expert Advisory Group to help reduce the impacts of climate change on the nation’s health.

The group will also support implementation of Australia’s first National Health and Climate Strategy, launched at COP28 in Dubai last December by Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care Ged Kearney.

The strategy is a whole-of-government plan that sets out actions to reduce the health system’s contribution to climate change and build a high-quality net-zero health system.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has described climate change as the greatest threat to global health this century. Negative health effects of climate change include heat-related sickness and death, injuries and mental health impacts from extreme weather events, respiratory illness due to air pollution and changes in the spread and risk of infectious diseases.

Chaired by Assistant Minister Kearney, the advisory group’s members include Professor Paul Kelly (Australia’s Chief Medical Officer and Head of the interim Australian Centre for Disease Control), health professionals, academic experts and community representatives.

The Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP) Climate and Environmental Medicine Chair Dr Catherine Pendrey has also been appointed to the group.

RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins said, “As chair of the RACGP’s Climate and Environmental Medicine Specific Interests group, Dr Catherine Pendrey is well placed to advise on the impacts of climate change on human health.

“Climate change is a global public health emergency, and GPs worldwide are seeing the impacts on their patients’ health, wellbeing and livelihoods. There is an urgent need to increase community and health system resilience in Australia — our leaders need to act now.”

The advisory group will ensure the views of the health community are fed into the process of developing and implementing the government’s climate and health policies.

The group held its first meeting this month and will meet at least three times a year. The group has discussed progress on implementing the strategy and heard that over one-fifth of the key actions have been substantively implemented to date, including: joining the WHO's Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health; investing $5 million in climate and health research; and preparing new reports on opportunities to reduce health system greenhouse gas emissions from waste, food and anaesthetic gases.

Kearney said, “We all have a shared goal is to protect all Australians from the severe health risks posed by climate change, and to make the health system as sustainable as possible.”

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