17/03/2021

(AU) Former Health Chiefs Turn Focus To Climate

Canberra Times - Rebecca Gredley AAP

Health experts say a cleaner environment will reduce deaths from air pollution by phasing out coal.

Former chief state health officers are among a raft of experts calling for climate action to protect the wellbeing of Australians.

Queensland's former chief health officer Gerard FitzGerald and Tasmania's Roscoe Taylor will on Tuesday take their calls to Parliament House in Canberra.

The pair are among a group of 30 leaders in health who want a national strategy on climate health and wellbeing.

Emeritus Professor FitzGerald says politicians have turned to chief health officers during the coronavirus pandemic to help steer the emergency response.

"Today we are asking them to keep listening to the advice of leading health voices and swiftly act on the health emergency of climate change," he said.

Dr Taylor has worked in public health for more than three decades.

"I have witnessed the rising harms and costs of climate change," he said.

"Unless all governments, and particularly the federal government, takes health advice seriously, the preventable harms of climate change will only worsen and more people will lose their lives or suffer ill-health."

Climate and Health Alliance director Fiona Armstrong says health leaders don't use the word emergency lightly.

"Across the country, doctors, nurses and health practitioners are already treating the health impacts caused by worsening climate change," she said.

The Climate and Health Alliance has previously released a framework for a national strategy, which makes a raft of policy recommendations including tougher emissions reduction targets.

It also urges the government to evaluate the economic savings associated with health benefits from a cleaner environment, and to reduce deaths from air pollution by phasing out coal.

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