We must quit fossil fuels to protect health
Our report “Fossil fuels are a health hazard” makes the diagnosis that coal, oil and gas are harming the health of all Australians in multiple myriad ways and calls on our governments to rapidly phase out fossil fuels to protect health.
Fossil fuels are the primary drivers of global heating and climate change, well recognised as the greatest public health threat facing humanity.
Coal, oil and gas cause dangerous air pollution - which kills more people every year that smoking.
Fossil fuels are also the source material for plastics and are causing biodiversity loss.
Similarly 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.
Doctors for the Environment calls on our governments to:-
- 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.
Fossil Fuels are a Health Hazard Report - PDF (Aug 2024)
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 5.13 million to 10.2 million people die prematurely from fossil fuel air pollution every year.”