Page 3378 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 October 2022
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28 February 2019 Canberra experienced 23 days above 35 degrees. And then we had the bushfires and the smoke that suffocated our city.
A study published in March 2020 by the Medical Journal of Australia titled “Unprecedented smoke‐related health burden associated with the 2019-20 bushfires in eastern Australia” found that the bushfire smoke resulted in an additional 229 hospital admissions, 82 for cardiovascular issues and 147 for respiratory issues; 89 emergency department presentations for asthma; and, sadly, an additional 31 deaths. This is why we are working so hard to reduce the carbon emissions driving climate change and to protect biodiversity and our natural environment.
I cannot tell you how reassuring it is for me to know that ministers Shane Rattenbury and Rebecca Vassarotti are working so hard on this, to know that my colleague Jo Clay is so relentless in her efforts from the crossbench to ensure that our transport network is geared towards reducing carbon emissions in the most effective ways possible, and that it is such a key part of the parliamentary and governing agreement for this ACT government.
Climate change health impacts are here, and they are not evenly distributed. People over 65 years old and children under five years old are at greater risk from the health impacts of a heatwave. The social determinants of health and wellbeing are important to consider in our health response to climate change. Where those older people or small children are living in a low income household in an urban heat island, those impacts will be felt more intensely. The 2017 CSIRO report Mapping surface urban heat in Canberra tells us that areas with the greatest concentration of households experiencing both urban heat island effects and low socio-economic circumstances are in west Belconnen, Watson, Gungahlin, Molonglo Valley, Weston Creek, Woden and Tuggeranong.
A study of around 500 people who had registered with the ACT government’s bushfire recovery centre after the 2003 Canberra bushfires found that after the fires their relationships with family, friends, community and neighbourhood were worse. There were long-lasting negative effects on their financial situation for 44.2 per cent of respondents, and lasting negative effects on their work situation for one in five respondents. This was in “Recovery from bushfires: The experience of the 2003 Canberra bushfires three years after”, in the Journal of Emergency Primary Health Care, volume 8, issue 1, published in 2010.
As documented in the CSIRO publication Climate Change Adaptation for Health and Social Services, studies have found that violence against women increases after natural disasters. Domestic violence and sexual assault rates also increase during even a short heatwave. There is also a relationship between what is happening in our natural environment and mental wellbeing. We have seen an undeniable rise in worries about climate change from ACT young people in recent years. The annual Mission Australia youth survey has consistently shown over the past few years that ACT young people believe that the biggest issues facing Australia are the environment and mental health, but they now have the additional layer of worry about the pandemic, both its public health and associated economic impacts.
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