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Our members are leading a number of campaigns and projects that aim to improve public health by promoting greater care for the environment. This page provides an overview of key pieces of work that are currently underway.
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Electorate Campaigning
With the next federal election looming, we are currently laying the groundwork for a campaign that will make climate change and health key issues in certain electorates.
If the planet is healthy, then people will also be healthy. The science for this is clear, yet our politicians and leaders are not addressing this challenge at the rate needed to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Doctors for the Environment Australia will be stepping up and our members will be working with the community to ensure all political candidates understand that in the interest of our health, we are depending on them to act on climate change and to ensure that this is a key election issue.
The key electorates we will be focusing on are in NSW, WA, Victoria and QLD.
We are demanding action from the federal government to address climate change by:
- Adopting an ambitious national plan to cut climate pollution this decade to protect health, with strong, science-based targets that at minimum match our key allies and trading partners.
- Significantly increasing Australia’s Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement at UN climate negotiations (COP26), in line with limiting global warming to 1.5 C.
- Adopting a Climate Change Bill.
- Establishing a national Sustainable Healthcare Unit to support environmentally sustainable practice in healthcare and reduce the sector’s own significant emissions.
If you’re interested in hearing more about the campaign and ways you can get involved, please email janelle.sewell@dea.org.au.
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The Push to Make Healthcare Sustainable
The healthcare sector is responsible for a whopping 7% of Australia’s carbon emissions.
We feel that a profession whose mantra is ‘first, do no harm’, has a responsibility to decarbonise as quickly as possible.
We recently joined forces with the Australian Medical Association (AMA) to call on the Australian healthcare sector to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero by 2040, with an interim emission reduction target of 80% by 2030.
We’re also calling for the establishment of a Sustainable Healthcare Unit to set a pathway for achieving green healthcare, the procurement of medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and goods for sources with low carbon footprints and the reduction of travel emissions through telemedicine and electric vehicle fleets.
The healthcare sector is wholly dedicated to preservation and protection of human health. Given that climate change is the biggest threat facing human health today, we believe that the sector has a responsibility to decarbonise.
To find out more, check out our full report on sustainable healthcare. Our members have also published a number of opinion pieces and articles that you can access here.