29 October 2007
Peter Garrett
Shadow Minister for Climate Change
Nicola Roxon
Shadow Minister for Health
A new ANU study showing climate change could have dangerous impacts on Australians’ health adds more pressure on the Howard Government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, Federal Labor said.
While the Howard Government denied climate change for 11 years, a Rudd Labor Government will ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
An Australian study “Healthy Planet, Places and People” by a panel of scientists shows how disastrous our failure to act might be.
The report states that many health problems, including infectious diseases, heart attacks and strokes were likely to increase with a warmer planet. These may include:
- Increases in the number of people with asthma;
- Up to three times more deaths as a result of heatwaves by 2050 – particularly among older Australians;
- The rate of mosquito-borne infectious diseases rising and spreading.
This follows the release last week of the United Nations' Global Environment Outlook-4 report, which found that more than 2 million people globally die prematurely every year due to outdoor and indoor air pollution.
Federal Labor has a comprehensive plan to tackle climate change. A Rudd Labor Government will:
- Ratify the Kyoto Protocol;
- Set up a national emissions trading scheme;
- Set up a $500 million National Clean Coal Fund; and
- Cut Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 levels by 2050
Federal Labor will also invest $2.5 billion in a National Health and Hospitals Reform Plan to improve the quality of health care Australians can expect in the future.
Contact: Ryan Heath (Garrett): 0449 141 398
Sean Kelly (Roxon): 0417 108 362