Planetary health: the Australian chapter

To the Editor:

Doctors for the Environment Australia welcomed MJA’s recent planetary health issue.1 It could not come at a more crucial time. Human health and the environment are inextricably linked, and medical professionals have a vital role in actively protecting health through care of the environment.

However, it was disappointing that little emphasis was given to the need to significantly mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and to the important advocacy role that medical professionals share to raise awareness of the urgency of delivering Australia’s Paris Agreement commitment. Global temperature rises greater than 1.5–2°C will adversely affect planetary health, sustainable development and nearly all future health goals.2 Further temperature increases will be catastrophic to sea level rises and the food and ecosystems on which human life depends. While countries such as France and China move ahead on mitigation measures, Australia is, at best, slow to understand the urgency or, at worst, an active global laggard. Australia is one of the OECD countries most vulnerable to climate change;3 it is among the top seven countries contributing to 60% of the world’s biodiversity loss,4 and yet it is not transitioning jobs or future wealth towards sustainable energy. All while human-induced environmental threats to the global riches of the Great Barrier Reef, the Northern Territory and the Pilliga and Tarkine forests are fast becoming this generation’s environmental legacy.

Doctors should urgently raise awareness of the threats to health from climate change, advocate to mitigate the threats, and show in practice that transitioning to low carbon societies in energy, diet and transport have health co-benefits. The greatest global health threat of the 21st century posed by climate change is also health’s greatest opportunity.5 Australian medical staff can systematically push the planetary health agenda into university training, specialist colleges, hospitals, clinics and communities. We are well placed to do so.