Introduction by Croakey: Researchers are working to support Australian policymakers and communities in responding to extreme weather conditions, including through developing strategies for effective adaptation to the ever-increasing risks of extreme heat, a recent conference was told.
The urgency of climate mitigation and adaptation was underscored at the recent Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL) Network conference, Alison Barrett reports for the Croakey Conference News Service.
Bookmark this link to read all the articles from the conference, with more to be published.
Alison Barrett writes:
The world is failing to deliver on its promises to effectively address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, leading scientist Professor Mark Howden told the recent Healthy Environment and Lives (HEAL) Network conference.
With temperatures going up “faster and faster over time” and 2024 likely to be the hottest year on record, Howden said “there is no room for complacency”.
“This is a large and growing problem,” he said, adding that the accelerating temperatures, rising sea levels and associated health impacts paint “a pretty grim picture”.
However, Howden, Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions at The Australian National University and Vice-Chair of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group, said “there is hope if we actually take effective action in relation to climate change”.
As Australia heads into what is expected to be a hot, dry summer, the fourth annual HEAL Network conference – held online on 27 and 28 November – brought a timely session on extreme heat and health protection.
In his keynote address, Howden said while it is good we are writing and talking “far more” about climate change and health, “in spite of that” we are going backwards when looking at real world metrics such as heat exposure and associated health impacts.
He referred to a graph by the IPCC showing that global greenhouse gas emissions are “flatlining” (the red line below), which doesn’t solve or stop climate change.
Flatlining will see us head towards a “three-degree world”, he said. “There’s a fundamental difference between where we’re going and where we said we needed to go as a globe.”
Howden said this poses significant implications for future health outcomes, which will vary substantially across the globe.
Disproportionate impacts from climate change in countries that already experience food and water insecurity are likely to get worse, he said.
It is also expected, as shown by University of Hawaii modelling in 2017, that by the end of this century, almost every day will become a “heat stress” day in countries and regions in equatorial, sub equatorial and tropical zones, Howden said, including northern parts of Australia.
Chronic heat increases the risk of vector-borne, food-borne and water-borne diseases in some countries, which lead to overall poorer health outcomes.
Increased temperatures also impact economic productivity, Howden told the conference, with a picture emerging where “almost every dimension of human interest starts getting impacted by climate change”.
Complex systems
There are many different aspects to climate change and health that include, but are not limited to, health system technologies, workforce, management and finance, according to Howden.
“It is a very complex system where climate change can impact on different components in different ways, in different places, at different times,” he said. “Unsurprisingly, it’s sometimes challenging to adapt complex systems to change.”
Individual climate hazards require multiple different adaptation responses and have impact on multiple different outcomes, he said.
Adaptation responses may include behaviour change, new technologies, capacity building, green infrastructure, and be at institutional, individual or community level.
Howden emphasised that adaptations “can occur across the system” and that “change needs to be thought of as contributing to much broader Sustainable Development Goals”.
“You can’t have good climate change action without sustainable development, and you can’t have sustainable development without good climate change,” he said.
Image above showing adaptation can occur across the system, presented by Professor Mark Howden (see the citation here).
Image above showing the complexity of adaptation, presented by Professor Mark Howden (see the citation here).
Historic hearings
Just a few weeks after Howden’s presentation to #HEAL2024, the head of the World Health Organization appeared at historic hearings of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, stressing the urgent threat of climate change.
“Climate change and extreme weather are wreaking havoc on humans and their health, disrupting societies, economies, and development,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an ICJ hearing examining who should bear legal responsibility for the worsening climate crisis.
“It is among the most significant health challenges facing humanity today. And it is not a hypothetical crisis in the future. It is here and now.
“Without immediate action, climate-related increases in disease prevalence, destruction of health infrastructure, and growing societal burdens could overwhelm already over-burdened health systems around the world.”
Calling for “a rapid and equitable phase out of fossil fuels”, Dr Tedros noted that last year saw CO2 emissions reach their highest levels to date, and highlighted the wide-ranging health consequences, including heat-related deaths and illnesses.
Across the lifespan
Professor Ollie Jay, from the Heat and Health Research Centre at University of Sydney, told the HEAL conference that evidence has emerged over the past five years demonstrating that we need to address “suffering and morbidity” from extreme heat, in addition to heat-related deaths.
The way in which heat-related morbidity presents itself is different across the human lifespan, he said. For example, research has shown an increased risk of stillbirth or premature delivery following extreme heat exposure during pregnancy.
Also, children, particularly during physical activity, and people older than 75 years have an increased risk of heat-related illness or injury, Jay said.
While there should be a lot of emphasis on climate change mitigation, he said, given “we have to contend with progressively hotter weather moving into the future”, we should adapt in ways that aren’t maladaptive.
“We need to think about the way that we’re going to adapt to extreme heat in the future,” Jay said.
Adaptation responses should be accessible and sustainable without disrupting power supply required for cooling strategies during times of extreme heat, Jay said. They also need to consider the interactions between extreme heat and bushfire, smoke, air quality, infectious disease, water-borne and vector-borne disease.
The Heat and Health Research Centre at University of Sydney, where Jay is Executive Director, is “striving to develop evidence-based solutions” to these challenges, he said.
Jay described the importance of translating evidence and knowledge into meaningful changes in policy and practice.
The Centre has partnered with New South Wales Health and the Victorian Department of Health to “ensure that the latest scientific evidence on heat reduction advice is embedded in their revised policies”.
They have also partnered with Google to deliver heat-related protection advice with Google’s excessive heat warning notifications.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for us to place the findings of our research in literally hundreds of millions of people’s hands worldwide,” Jay said.
Place-based solutions
Place-based research and local collaboration are key for adaptation, Associate Professor Supriya Mathew, from Menzies School of Health Research at Mparntwe/Alice Springs, told the conference.
She said that for various reasons heat adaptation is not very straightforward in remote settings. For example, health advice for people to stay indoors and use air conditioning during heatwaves is not helpful for many living in remote Northern Territory communities, where housing and energy insecurity is common.
Working with communities and local services to engage residents in climate change adaptation solutions is the way forward, she said.
Local to national adaptation
Following an extreme heatwave event in south-east Australia in 2009, Professor Peng Bi from the University of Adelaide and colleagues across Australia undertook research to identify threshold temperatures relating to increased morbidity and mortality.
The research identified the populations most vulnerable to extreme heat – elderly, infants and children, people in social isolation, with chronic disease, outdoor workers, frontline emergencies and people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Additionally, they investigated the adaptation capacity of the healthcare workforce and healthcare costs and productivity loss due to climate change.
The research led them to attempt “two big things”, according to Bi:
- policy suggestions, in the form of a SA Heat and Health Early Warning System in 2010, threshold temperature detections for regional Australia, and the Australian National Climate Change and Population Health Research Strategies and Directions 2012-18
- community engagement, including with culturally and linguistically diverse communities and through ten roadshows/workshops across Australia to promote heat and health adaptation strategies.
Working in collaboration with SA State Emergency Services and SA Department of Health and Bureau of Meteorology, Bi said they developed a three-level heat warning system: preparedness, watch and warning. An evaluation of the heat warning system in South Australia showed lower ambulance callouts and emergency presentations during the 2014 heatwaves.
The Heat and Health Early Warning system was adopted nationally in 2022 (see more details here).
Bi said the community intervention involved education around cleaning air-conditioners, and looking out for older people in their neighbourhood and people who are socially isolated.
Working with the Migrant Resource Centre and culturally and linguistically diverse communitues, he said they developed a specific information sheet about heat health in 20 different languages, as well as information for radio broadcasts in ten languages.
They also conducted a randomised controlled trial to investigate the efficacy of targeted information messages around heat health for people 65 years or older, which found the messages reduced negative health outcomes from heat and increased positive heat adaptation behaviours.
Bi told the conference researchers need to work closely with policymakers, end-users and “more importantly, we need to work together with vulnerable communities”.
Further reading
- Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions’ submission to the National Adaptation Plan Consultation
- As Spain mourns, new reports reveal a world in peril from climate inaction, Dr Melissa Sweet
For more conference news, follow #Heal2024 on X, bookmark this link for further articles at Croakey, and also follow this conference X/Twitter list.
