Labor commits $15 million to Australia’s first climate and health research centre

The University of NSW would be home to the nation’s first research centre focusing on the impacts of climate change on Australians’ health, under a $15 million election pledge.

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An Australian-first centre finding solutions to the impact of climate change on Australians’ physical and mental health would be created under a Labor government.

The Opposition would spend $15 million establishing the National Health and Climate Centre at the University of NSW’s Kensington campus if elected to power on May 18.

It would give birth to 30 new research positions, focusing on issues including temperature-related death and illness, climate’s influence on water-related illness in rural areas, and how climate impacts on health services — particularly in vulnerable areas with large indigenous and low-socio economic populations.

The impact of poor air quality on populations as a result of bushfires would also be investigated, as would how mental health and wellbeing is influenced by climate-induced stress.

Matt Thistlethwaite MP announcing the funding on Thursday..

Associate Professor Donna Green said added strain on health systems due to rising temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events were already costing Australia’s economy billions of dollars.

“We all know that Australians are already highly vulnerable to extreme weather events,” she said.

“There is already a lot of funding for research on health and research on climate change. This centre will bring it all together.”

Prof Green, who would run the new centre, said respiratory illnesses including asthma were on the rise caused by worsening air pollution from bushfires.

UNSW Vice Chancellor Ian Jacobs, Associate Professor Donna Green and Matt Thistlethwaite MP.

Deteriorating mental health associated with rural populations battling droughts was also a serious concern, she said.

Research from the Climate and Health Alliance found the health and social costs of the deadly Black Saturday bushfires cost nearly $4 billion, while action on recent floods in Queensland totalled more than $7.4 billion.

Kingsford Smith federal Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite announced the commitment on Thursday, saying the centre would leverage off UNSW’s proud history of innovation in renewable energy and climate change.

“This will be the election where we make a decision as a nation whether we get serious on climate change,” he said.

“Climate change is the world’s largest health risk in modern day politics. A lack of action on climate change will risk Australian lives.”

UNSW Vice Chancellor Ian Jacobs said both sides of politics had a ‘moral imperative’ to tackle climate change. Picture: John Feder

Mr Thistlethwaite said 40 to 50 PHD students would assist researchers in the centre.

The centre would be overseen by an independent advisory board chaired by Professor Carmen Lawrence, a scientist and former Labor Premier of Western Australia.

Each state and territory health departments, health service industries, academia and the NGO sector would be represented on the board.

UNSW Vice Chancellor Ian Jacobs implored political parties “regardless of who wins” to come together for urgent action on climate change.

“There is a moral imperative to overcome partisan lines and declare this the existential threat that it really is,” he said.

“We need to move beyond the anti-intellectualism that pervades the discussion, that my opinion is equal to your facts.

“It is dangerous and it has brought us to the brink of no return.”