The 2021 report of theMJA–LancetCountdown on health and climate change: Australia increasingly out on a limb

Abstract

Hobart) that exceeded the moderate, high and extreme Heat Stress Risk threshold as defined by the 2021 Sports Medicine Australia Extreme Heat Policy 13 2 Annual number of National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC) aircraft services and volunteer firefighters and support staff in Australia from 2007-08 to 2020-21 NAFC aircraft services represent the number of aircraft in Australia available to fight bushfires. It should be noted that some aircraft double up for the north and south of the country; for example, an aircraft may run in Queensland then move to Tasmania as a separate service. A service is usually exclusive to NAFC use, mostly for 84 or 96 days each summer (some services run longer). Data sources: NAFC and Australian Government Productivity Commission. ◆ MJA 215 (9) ▪

The 2022 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: towards a climate resilient future

“… 19 This indicator reports the number of hours in which heat exposure poses a risk to health during physical exercise unless actions are taken to reduce the risk, while accounting for the intensity of the activity. 20 , 21 Overall, the number of hours of risk per person is increasing across all European regions. In southern Europe, the number of hours with heat-related health risks during medium-intensity activities (eg, football or tennis) increased relatively by 106% between 1990 and 2020, and increased to 429 hours per person in 2020.…”

“…For strenuous activities (eg, mountain biking), there was a relative increase of 77% in southern Europe, leading to 627 hours at risk per person in 2020. 20 , 21

Figure 1 Heat and human health in Europe (A) Hours of risk per person per year (1990–2020) with 95% confidence intervals for physical-activity-related heat stress per European region, for activities of medium and high intensity. (B) Trends in heat related mortality incidence (annual death per million per decade) in Europe for the general population (2000–20).

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Perceptions of air quality and concern for health in relation to long-term air pollution exposure, bushfires, and COVID-19 lockdown: A before-and-after study

“…Air quality and climate change are inextricably linked, and Australians are reporting climate change as greater concern than the COVID-19 pandemic [55] . Cutting fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emission, as part of Australia's response to the climate crisis, will likely have several co-benefits for urban air quality and human health [56] . In Australia, the transport sector is responsible for 17% of greenhouse gas emissions.…”

RANZCP Abstracts

“…A Harris 1,2,3 , D Pollack 4,5 , A Rosen 6,7 and R Patrick 8,9 Background and Objective: Climate change is likely to be the defining challenge for the 21st century (World Health Organization, 2018). At present the national and international response to this crisis does not match the gravity of the situation despite the evidence of the severity (Beggs et al, 2021). This symposium brings together speakers who will present action taken by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and other national and international medical organisations to build a sustainable and resilient healthcare sector.…”