The Climate Action Beacon is kicking off a new Climate Action Webinar series, each month we will present a lunchtime webinar to showcase some of our incredible research outcomes and engagements. The first in this series will be an exploration of the impacts of extreme heat in preparation for summer. Our team of experts agree that if we think about what the greatest risk to the right to life caused by climate change is, it is - hands-down and without a doubt - extreme heat events. This has major implications for those providing key social services.
The heat is being driven by a number of regional weather patterns, combined with climate change. We cannot view this as a glimpse of our future, this is our present, a reality resulting from 1.1 degrees of global warming to date. Heatwaves are already worse due to human influenced climate change, and extreme heat events will continue to increase in frequency, severity, and duration as global warming rises with each additional degree of warming.
Come along to hear from Griffith experts about how extreme heat, both now and in a changing future, will impact upon where we live, work and play. We will look at the predictions for our own Australian summer, projections for extreme heat days into the future, how extreme heat impacts on individual health, as well climate justice issues facing vulnerable groups.
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For more context on the discussions we need to be having now, the lessons we can learn, and the impacts of extreme heat, please read the piece titled "Cruel Summer" written by Professor Susan Harris Rimmer below.
This session will be an online webinar and will include a presentation from our wonderful panel, followed by a 30-minute Q&A session.
Panel Members:
Professor Brendan Mackey
Professor Susan Harris Rimmer
Associate Professor Shannon Rutherford
Event Details:
Date Friday 13 October 2023
Time 12:00 - 1.30 pm AEST
Venue Online via Teams
Please register via this link
If you have any issues with accessing the registration form, or any questions, please contact us: climateactionbeacon@griffith.edu.au
Cruel Summer (Professor Susan Harris Rimmer)
The heat records just keep coming; it's much hotter, and for much longer. July 2023 alone has seen the hottest global average temperature and the Northern Hemisphere is facing heatwaves from the United States, through Southern Europe and North Africa, to East Asia, on top of heatwaves there in April and May. Hidden behind these headlines is the very real human cost of loss of life and social harm, especially in cities. Headlines shout about people dying in the heat: agricultural workers, bicycle delivery workers, the elderly who had survived covid but could not survive the heat in their own homes.
Heat-related deaths are on the rise globally. In 2019, a study in The Lancet attributed 356,000 deaths to extreme heat. Over 2,000 people died in Spain and Portugal in the space of one week in July last year due to heatwaves - and these were mostly the countries' elders. At the same time, more evidence is emerging from India and Pakistan about the impacts of those countries' heatwaves on pregnancy3. We now know that for every 1-degree Celsius temperature rise, the risk of both premature and stillbirths rises by 5%. One Australian study3 found a 46% increase in stillbirths during heatwaves, and others have found a link between heat exposure during pregnancy and low birth weight.
If we think about what the greatest risk to the right to life caused by climate change is, it is - hands-down and without a doubt - extreme heat events. This has major implications for those providing key social services.
The heat is being driven by a number of regional weather patterns, combined with climate change. We cannot view this as a glimpse of our near future, this is our present, a reality resulting from 1.1 degrees of global warming to date Heatwaves are already worse due to human influenced climate change, and extreme heat events will continue to increase in frequency, severity, and duration with each additional degree of warming
This means there is simply no excuse for those in the Southern Hemisphere not to heed the lessons in inequity revealed by heatwaves, nor to learn from the experiences of those in the north. Extreme heat, like Covid-19, affects marginalised and vulnerable people adversely, but there are a range of exciting ideas from global practice that Australia could apply to take a human rights approach to extreme heat events in this part of the world.
According to the Queensland Department of Health, an extreme heat event occurs when temperatures sit at 5 degrees above average for three days or more - and particularly when this is coupled with high levels of humidity. These conditions pose serious health risks for the elderly, for young children, for pregnant women, for outdoor workers and for people with extant chronic health conditions.
All these groups are those most likely to be receiving, or reliant upon, social services.
Heatwaves also affect people's ability to work and to access services; they affect those facing housing stress or homelessness. Serious issues also emerge around energy poverty, issues of power failures, and inadequate housing that are further exposed during heatwaves. Plus, there are structural urban planning issues to consider. Many outdoor spaces in Australia were never designed for extreme heat - for instance, certain places in Western Sydney are affected by heat sinks now due to poor planning in the past, as was explored in this beautiful photo essay by Sophie McNeill and Matthew Abbott for Human Rights Watch.
While Australia still does not have a federal climate health strategy, some states do, the most comprehensive being South Australia, with its useful guide Healthy in the Heat. Melbourne, too, now has two Chief Heat Officers, one of six cities globally that are participating in an international movement to improve how cities handle heat in a warming world, thanks to a partnership with the US-based Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Centre.
But we still haven't done the deep thinking and planning required to get communities ready - and the next El Nino southern summer is almost here. So here are some important questions to consider.
Will we have to think about seasonal mobility?
According to a recent deep listening tour undertaken by Griffith University's Policy Innovation Hub and the Climate Justice Observatory, people in Northern Queensland are already discussing a future that might involve moving south for January. Will there be parts of Australia that are already difficult places to live and work in the summer months that tip over to become uninhabitable on a seasonal basis? What happens to summer sport, agricultural activities, or tourism?
What will be the impact on decent work?
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), "decent work'
… sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives. It involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for all, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men.
It is, in the description of the UNHCR's Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, employment that "respects the fundamental rights of the human person as well as the rights of workers in terms of conditions of work safety and remuneration' with "respect for the physical and mental integrity of the worker in the exercise of his/her employment'.
Before the northern summer of 2022, a recent ILO report5 had already targeted agricultural jobs, construction, sport, and tourism as sectors affected by heat stress. So, should the government provide JobKeeper-type payments to outdoor workers during heatwaves? What about those in the informal sector, such as workers who are delivering food by bicycle? Will companies accept the need for extreme heat labour safeguards?
How will access to health be impacted?
In 2016, a Climate Council report4 used existing data to map increases in ambulance call outs, emergency department presentations as well as heat related deaths to indicate additional pressures on health system during hotter months. This report - now more than six years old - found that "although many states have taken significant steps to upgrade their heat and health warning systems since the deadly heatwaves of 2009, strategies vary considerably from state to state and focus primarily on reactive rather than long-term planning'.
Exploring the 2009 heatwaves that impacted Australia's east coast, this report found that:
…emergency callouts jumped by 46%; cases involving heat-related illness jumped 34-fold; and cardiac arrests almost tripled in Victoria. In total, 374 excess deaths were recorded, a 62% increase on the previous year. It also reported that "although many states have taken significant steps to upgrade their heat and health warning systems since the deadly heatwaves of 2009, strategies vary considerably from state to state and focus primarily on reactive rather than long-term planning'.
What is the impact on homeless populations?
Homeless people need adequate shelter during a heatwave to avoid fatal consequences. Access to food is more difficult and food spoils more easily, plus there is additional need for increased amounts of water. Triggers for mental health and exposure to trauma increase as does the underlying issue that homeless people may have limited access to safe spaces during any extreme weather event (homelessness services may not be equipped to support increased demand). As the experience in the US demonstrated earlier this year, it was clear that cities like San Francisco were ill-equipped to respond to help homeless people in the latest heatwaves.
In Australia, many air-conditioned spaces require people to undertake a commercial transaction to remain there. This begs an important question: do places like public libraries take on the role of "cool banks', as they did in the UK during the heatwaves there?
Heatwaves also implicated in increasing rates of homelessness among those at risk. And while there are exciting examples of strategies that could build resilience among homeless populations exposed to extreme weather events, more needs to be done in this space - both on the ground, and in terms of modelling and planning.
Current strategies in place in Australia include:
• Out of the Storm: a South Australian intervention using trauma informed extreme weather resilience education; and
• A city-wide plan for heatwaves and homelessness put in place by the City of Melbourne.
Will heatwaves worsen mental health?
Increased heatwaves will likely have implications on mental health in terms of social connectedness and social isolation, particularly among vulnerable groups. But extreme heat also affects mental health more broadly: it is already known to lead to increased aggression and increased suicide rates. And what about the mental health of those responding to these crises? Occasional crises might be manageable, but ongoing emergencies, placing ever-growing pressure on stretched social service responders, pushes people and systems to breaking point.
What should states, cities and communities be doing to help their citizens look after each other's and their own mental health during a heatwave? And what lessons can be learned here, too, from the pandemic?
What about electricity bills?
Energy bills are a hot topic around the world as one hemisphere approaches its winter and the other its summer. In the context of the coming summer months, should utilities companies be able to cut off power during an extreme heat event - even if all processes have been followed? And should people be evicted during a heatwave? This has been - literally and metaphorically- a hot debate in the USA. While many US states have policies preventing power shutdown during the colder months, there are fewer clear policies in place in terms of summer. As Rebecca Leber reported for Vox in early August:
The nation doesn't have an accurate picture of just what the lack of any coherent cooling strategy costs the public. Some low-income consumers must choose between turning on the AC or buying food. For some, it means utilities have cut off their power for falling behind on an unpaid bill, even in life-threatening heat.
These are debates it's important to have now, not during a heatwave.
Is there a right to air-conditioning in certain spaces?
On 19 April 2022, the Queensland Government reported that air-conditioning had been delivered for "every single classroom, library and staffroom in every single state school'.
Should the state bear the cost of air-conditioning for early childcare centres, aged care homes, prisons, and schools? And should swimming pools be free in towns without free air-conditioned spaces? Do we have a right to shade in our streets and towns?
Launch of the Climate Action Beacon's Climate Justice Observatory
In early 2023, Griffith University's Climate Action Beacon launched its Climate Justice Observatory in Birdsville to explore these questions and more. The Observatory will apply the established human rights methodologies of observatories - the provision of reliable information, equity data, climate modelling, long- form journalism and multidisciplinary expert analysis - to the question of climate justice. This online resource will allow citizens to monitor issues, map local problems and crowd- source solutions while also providing campaign resources.
With its first work focused on heatwaves in Queensland, the Climate Justice Observatory has begun the critical work of monitoring and tracking the development of laws, policies, and justice interventions in this region and beyond, adding value to existing open-access global resources for citizen education and action everywhere.
The Observatory is a growing and living resource designed to be updated as our knowledge grows, and the impacts of climate change becomes clearer. Griffith University is keen to partner with and source contributions from across Queensland and Australia to help build our knowledge-base of climate justice, so feel free to get in touch.
References
1. https://www.health.vic.gov.au/environmental-health/planning-for-extreme-heat-andheatwaves
2. https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/33e7f9004708784eb87ff822d29d9 9f6/SA+Health+Extreme+Heat+Strategy+V6.11.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=33e7f9004708 784eb87ff822d29d99f6
3. Bekkar, Bruce et al. 2020. "Association of Air Pollution and Heat Exposure With Preterm Birth, Low Birth Weight, and Stillbirth in the US: A Systematic Review." JAMA Network Open 3(6): e208243-e208243.
4. Hughes L, Hannah E, Fenwick J. 2016. The Silent Killer: Climate Change and the Health Impacts of Extreme Heat. Climate Council. https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/silentkillerreport/
5. International Labour Office. 2019. Working on a Warmer Planet: The Impact of Heat Stress on Labour Productivity and Decent Work. Geneva: ILO.
6. Joan Ballester, Marcos Quijal-Zamorano, Raúl Fernando Méndez Turrubiates, Ferran Pegenaute, François R. Herrmann, Jean Marie Robine, Xavier Basagaña, Cathryn Tonne, Josep M. Antó, Hicham Achebak. Heat-related mortality in Europe during the summer of 2022. Nature Medicine, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02419-z