Climate and health litigation mounting in Australia as exposure to heat waves grows

Australia’s exposure to extreme heat continues to grow while the country has emerged as a global hotspot for climate change litigation, according to the latest MJA–Lancet Countdown report, published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

The report reveals Australia has experienced a 37% increase in excess heat factor over the past 20 years.

Lead author and Director of The Lancet Countdown Center in Oceania, Professor Paul Beggs from Macquarie University, says these findings underscore the importance of long-term tracking of climate hazards and exposures in Australia.

“The frequency of health-damaging heat has increased substantially since the 1970s,” says Professor Beggs.

The report presents a comprehensive assessment of the connections between health and climate change in Australia across five domains: health hazards and impacts; adaptation planning; mitigation actions; economics and finance; and public and political engagement.

Rising litigation

For the first time, the report measures health and climate change litigation, with Australia having the second-highest number of climate change cases globally.

“Health was raised as an issue in eleven Australian climate cases between 2014 and 2023,” says Professor Beggs.

“Courts have closely examined detailed evidence about how climate change directly and indirectly affects people’s health, especially for vulnerable groups.”

Key deficiencies identified in Australia’s response to climate and health threats include a 17% drop in the number of volunteer firefighters in just seven years, undermining Australia’s capacity to respond to bushfires.

Continued dominance of fossil fuels in Australia’s energy supply also contributes to climate risks.

Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s health care sector rose in 2021 to their highest level since 2010, likely due in part to shifts in patterns of care in response to COVID-19.

Good news on progress

Areas of progress identified include the Australian Government’s completion of the first National Climate Risk Assessment, which included health and social support as one of eleven priority risks.

“This past year Australia has taken a crucial step forward in understanding how risks are connected across sectors,” says Professor Hilary Bambrick, one of the authors of the report and Director of the National Center for Epidemiology and Population Health at The Australian National University.

“This assessment should facilitate more considered and coordinated planning and response to increasingly dangerous climate change to better protect human health and well-being.”

Renewable energy now provides almost 40% of Australia’s electricity, with growth in both large-scale and small-scale generation and storage.

“Electricity generation from renewables keeps accelerating, fossil fuel generation is shrinking, but ensuring reliability of electricity supply demands even greater investment in renewables and storage,” says Professor Stefan Trueck, another report author and Director of Macquarie University’s Center for Transforming Energy Markets.

The sale of electric vehicles reached an all-time high in 2023 of 98,436, accounting for 8.47% of all new vehicle sales.

While Australia had a reprieve from major catastrophic climate events in 2023, New Zealand experienced Cyclone Gabrielle and unprecedented floods.

Professor Alistair Woodward, another author on the report and Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Auckland, says, “A strength of the Countdown report is that it includes views from both sides of the Tasman.

“Australia and New Zealand differ geographically, but both are being squeezed by climate change, and we can learn from each other’s policy and health system responses.”

Pivotal period

The report states that the next five years are pivotal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to renewable energy.

Scientific research on health and climate change in Australia has grown dramatically, with 525 publications in 2023, marking a 29% increase from 2022.

The MJA–Lancet Countdown, established in 2017, is an annual assessment tracking progress on health and climate change in Australia.

The 2024 report represents the work of 25 experts from 15 institutions across Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the U.S., in a multidisciplinary collaboration across the fields of climate science, public health, energy policy, economics, and environmental research.

In future reports, the authors plan to introduce indicators on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and climate change, and mental health impacts of climate change.

This content was originally published on The Macquarie University Lighthouse.