Fossil fuels kill and harm our health
As the primary drivers of climate change, fossil fuels are responsible for the climate health emergency. Doctors and other health professionals who are on the frontline of care are seeing the escalating impacts in their clinics and in emergency departments.
Climate change harms health in multiple ways.
- It is increasing the incidence and severity of heat and heatwaves, droughts, bushfires and bushfire smoke, storms, and other extreme weather events.
- It is changing the patterns of infectious diseases.
- It is adding to the mental health burden across the globe, especially in our young people.
- It is contributing to biodiversity loss, increasing our risk of zoonotic diseases.
- It is causing rising sea levels, placing coastal communities at risk.
- It is threatening our food and water security.
The combustion of fossil fuels releases dangerous air pollution which kills more people globally than smoking. Emissions from coal-fired power stations, especially older ones, can travel long distances, impacting areas hundreds of kilometres away.
Fossil fuels are the source material for plastics, causing environmental pollution and harming health through hormonal disruption and increasing our risk of cardiovascular disease.
We must quit fossil fuels to protect health
Similar to addressing the health impacts of tobacco by first quitting smoking, to address the health impacts of fossil fuels we must first quit coal, oil and gas.
To protect the health of the Australian people, we must:
- ban all new fossil fuel projects and accelerate investment in renewables
- stop financial subsidies to fossil fuel industries and redirect them to carbon-free initiatives
- ban fossil fuel advertising and industry sponsorship, just like we did with smoking
- ban single-use and non-recyclable plastics and switch to reusable and/or compostable products
- protect biodiversity and ban native forest logging
- prepare healthcare and the wider community for what we can no longer avoid.
Email your MP
Emailing your MP and showing your support will increase the strength of our campaign asking the Australian Government to ban all new coal and gas projects due to their harmful effects on the health of people and on our environment.
https://docsforenvaust.good.do/fossilfuelsareahealthhazard/Email_Your_MP/
Sign our petition
Sign our petition calling on our government to protect the health of the Australian people and
- ban all new coal, oil and gas projects
- legislate national restrictions on fossil fuel advertising and sponsorships.
We must put the health of the Australian people ahead of the interests of the fossil fuel industry.
Read our report
Read our full report that diagnoses how fossil fuels are a health hazard, and outlines a treatment plan to protect health.
Note: the current report has been amended to correct an error on p8 - amended to “...by 2050 climate change will cause an additional 14.5 million deaths” and on p14 - amended to “…estimate that 5.12 million to 10.2 million people die prematurely from fossil fuel air pollution every year.”