Introduction by Croakey: As he spoke to Labor Caucus today, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stressed the importance of making sure young people feel secure in a world of rapid change.
After Parliament returned, most likely at the end of July, the Government’s first legislation would be to reduce students’ HECS debt, he said.
However, the Prime Minister did not acknowledge the impacts of the climate crisis upon young people, now and into the future, nor the effects of ongoing fossil fuel expansion upon their health, as outlined in a new report.
Melissa Sweet writes:
Underfunded mental healthcare systems are ill-equipped to cope with growing demand arising from the direct and indirect impacts of climate change upon mental health, according to a new report.
The report, ‘How climate change affects mental health in Australia’, says “substantial investment and innovation” are needed to develop a climate-resilient mental health sector.
Without a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and towards restoring nature, we can expect to see further increases in mental disorders and emergency mental health presentations among young people, it warns.
The report outlines the direct and indirect impacts of hotter temperatures and extreme weather events upon mental health, and highlights groups at increased risks, as well as making policy recommendations, including the need for “strong, decisive action to reduce the carbon emissions from healthcare”.
“Working with communities to drastically reduce emissions this decade, governments can still prevent the worst of global warming, with enormous benefits to mental health and wellbeing,” it says.
“At the same time, a comprehensive response to climate change mental health impacts will require substantially increased resourcing in order to meet the escalating needs into the future.”
The report, released by Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA), also urges health professionals to do more to communicate the urgency of climate action.
“Health professionals in Australia are twice as likely to be concerned or alarmed about climate change than the general population, with 53 percent alert or alarmed in the largest survey to date,” it says.
“Despite this, many health professionals are not yet communicating the urgency of action to protect human health, including mental health, from climate change.”
Over to the PM?
In a statement accompanying the report’s release, Dr Cybele Dey, DEA spokesperson and a child and adolescent psychiatrist, said the federal election results showed that climate concern remained high in the community, and urged the Albanese Government to prioritise climate action.
“As a child psychiatrist, I see that more and more children and teenagers are experiencing mental disorders made worse by climate driven extreme weather,” Dey said. “In the Emergency Department, so many young people are needing help with serious mental distress including suicidal thoughts as temperatures rise.
“It is heart-breaking that these recognised mental health harms aren’t even considered in Australian government decision-making about fossil fuel projects that are driving climate change.
“The new Government has the chance to leave a profound legacy, by reducing future harms to mental health by rapidly transitioning away from fossil oil, coal and gas, whilst simultaneously addressing current mental health workforce shortages, and planning for future increased mental health needs.
“Australian voters have spoken, now it’s over to Albanese.’’
Priority groups
The report says Indigenous people are particularly at risk from climate change, due to the centrality of connection to Country and culture, while experiences of intergenerational trauma, displacement and marginalisation as a result of colonisation compound the risks.
People living in rural and remote communities are also at increased risk of mental health impacts of climate change, and have lower levels of funding, resources and more fragmented mental healthcare over time, it says.
People with severe mental illness, with substance use disorders and with dementia are at markedly increased risk of serious illness, hospitalisation and death during heatwaves, the report says.
Farmers and others whose livelihood depend on primary production and stable climactic conditions are another group at increased risk.
Frontline emergency service workers, such as firefighters, police, ambulance and State Emergency Service volunteers, are well known to be at increased risk of PTSD and other mental health conditions due to traumatic exposures, with climate change increasing the frequency and intensity of their exposures.
Scientists, environmental workers, conservationists and others who work closely with the environment are also vulnerable to increased climate-related distress, the report says. “This has been described as ‘pre-traumatic stress’, in that they are dealing with evidence and predictions of frightening realities on a daily basis.”
Actions needed
The report says that investment is needed to increase the capacity of mental health workforces, services and infrastructure to cope with the expected increases in mental healthcare needs associated with climate change and rising temperatures.
It calls for responses in disaster-affected communities to be long term, embedded and sustainable, rather than short term interventions in the immediate aftermath.
Evidence-based suicide prevention must consider the evidence pointing to increased risk for death from suicide with hotter temperatures, it says. This is especially important given that suicide is already the leading cause of death of 15-44 year olds in Australia, and that temperatures in Australia are already rising and can be expected to rise more than in most other high-income countries.
Policy development should not consider mental health responses in isolation, but also consider the impact of climate change on other known risk factors for mental ill health.
The use of health adaptation plans at all levels of healthcare, including the National Health and Climate Strategy, will allow for proactive rather than reactive adaptation to ongoing climate pressures. “Such plans must be supported by adequate funding and workforce capacity building,” says the report.
Ensuring that mental health services include ongoing, rather than transient, community-based services that are actively co-designed, engaged and delivered in partnership with local communities, is critical, particularly in Indigenous, refugee, transcultural, rural and remote communities.
Australian research in disaster-impacted communities has shown that community-led collective action and planning can build social and relational capital, engender feelings of belonging and increase informal social connectedness, while simultaneously helping communities prepare for the impacts of climate change, says the report.
The report includes a list of resources for coping with climate distress.
Recent climate health news
Nature: Climate risk for younger generations is set to soar
“An analysis shows that large fractions of future generations will be exposed to extreme climate events that would occur only once every 10,000 years in the absence of global warming.”
The New England Journal of Medicine: Clearing the Smoke on Fossil Fuels — The Health Imperative for a Countermarketing Campaign
“As the fossil-fuel industry continues to obstruct efforts to curtail pollution from its products, the health community should use strategies that have been effective in fighting other health-harming industries.”
Listen to Professor Fiona Stanley, referring to this recent paper in Nature, Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability.
Climate change increases the risk of simultaneous wildfires 
An example of how this tools works for those born in 1963
Renew Economy: Australian politics loses climate warrior as Greens leader Adam Bandt concedes “purple” defeat
See Croakey’s archives on the climate emergency and health
