Moving from fossil fuel-powered energy to renewables and electrifying transport, homes and the economy will reduce emissions, but experts say Australia is not moving rapidly enough.

Australia’s greenhouse emissions fell 0.8 per cent during the year to September 2021, with the switch to renewable electricity from coal and gas meaning emissions from the electricity sector fell 4.7 per cent.

Protect nature and restore degraded ecosystems

The newly released IPCC report recognises the interdependence of climate, biodiversity and human populations more strongly than earlier assessments and it points to nature’s potential to reduce climate risks and improve people’s lives, saying that healthy ecosystems are more resilient to climate change and provide food and clean water.

By conserving 30 to 50 per cent of earth’s land, freshwater and oceans, human societies would benefit from nature’s capacity to absorb and store carbon, the report finds.

We need to stop degrading nature through plastic pollution, salinity and land clearing, says RMIT’s Lauren Rickards, from the school of global, urban and social studies. Australia’s high rate of land clearing is one of the major obstacles to it making progress on climate change, Professor Rickards says.

“We are making our climate mitigation and adaptation jobs so much harder if we passively allow existing degradation to continue,” she says. “We can’t assume natural systems are just going to truck along and be there ready for us to benefit from when we need them.”

Half the world’s population lives in cities and their health and livelihoods, as well as infrastructure and transport systems, are increasingly at risk from heat waves, storms, flooding and rising sea levels.

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Climate action in cities should include green and energy-efficient buildings, urban greening, reliable supplies of water and power and revegetation of parks and gardens to encourage wildlife, the IPCC says.

Invest in health and equality

Becoming lower carbon and more equitable societies has multiple benefits for health and wellbeing, the IPCC report’s authors say.

“It’s going to be a win-win scenario if we invest in climate justice and lower greenhouse emissions societies because we’ll see flow-on benefits to human health and wellbeing,” says Professor Kathryn Bowen, a report author and expert in climate and global health at Melbourne’s University.

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Globally, the worst climate health impacts are threats to health and water security. Climate change will also exacerbate current underlying health issues, which means health systems need to be strengthened.

Professor Bowen says the impact on mental health of climate change is also evident. Not only do these come from the trauma of experiencing an extreme weather event, but from a feeling of ‘solastalgia’ - a sense of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change.

“Mental health impacts - particularly stress, post-traumatic stress disorder and general trauma - are evident. This points to the need for a robust health sector to properly address them.”

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