Researchers at the University of Hawaii have found that climate change is magnifying exposure to diseases caused by pathogens, like Zika, malaria, dengue, chikungunya and even Covid-19. This is because of the increasing frequency and severity of heatwaves, fires, and extreme rainfall and floods.

The study was published this week in Nature.

The rising temperature is changing weather patterns, and this creates an environment where pathogens thrive and for carriers like mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas that spread diseases like malaria, Lyme disease, West Nile virus. Floods bring a rise is cases of gastroenteritis, cholera, Legionnaires disease pneumonia, and hepatitis, and drought brings dysentery, typhoid, and other diseases because of shortages of water.

Poorer nations have been hit hardest. But wealthier nations like Australia cannot escape an environment favouring the spread of these pathogens. Global warming is already set to rise by more than 1.5 degree centigrade. Imagine the impact is it rises substantially more than this, which will be the result if the current reluctance of governments to act sufficiently continues.

A rising climate changes the capacity of the human body to adjust, damages the infrastructure needed to deal with health challenges, forces populations into conditions that increase infection exposure. The risk of increasing food and water insecurity leads to malnourishment and greater risk of disease.

The World Health Organization has warned that the climate crisis “threatens to undo the last 50 years of progress in development, global health, and poverty reduction” and has estimated that an additional 250,000 people will die each year.

It is stating the obvious to say that the health risk of climate change is not being taken anywhere near seriously enough. This must change. A global approach to this is ultimately needed. But we can do something within our own nations. Australia, for example, already has a quite extensive health system. This could be upgraded to purposely prepare for what is coming.

Much more can be done to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere and to cut back the export fossil fuels to other parts of the world. Australia could be an ambassador for more collective global action. The new Albanese government has made positive moves towards carbon reduction. This is only a start. There is a long way to go yet.

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No surprises here. The Morrison government hid evidence that the damage being caused to Australia by climate warming is far worse than it let on. This is the reality revealed in a devastating and latest State of the Environment Report, produced on behalf of this government, and led by expert Emma Johnston from the University of Sydney.

During the lead up to this year’s election the government hid the report. This borders on criminal action and those responsible should be held accountable.

This report departed from previous ones, in that for the first time, there was a shift from recognising a future threat to recognising that the climate crisis has arrived and is with us now.

The Albanese government has chosen to release this at a time when Europe and other parts of thew world are suffering an unprecedented heat wave taking the temperature past 40 degrees centigrade, and Australia’s devastating fires and flooding of the last two years.

Much of the attention has been on the state of the countryside. The report deals with this. It also points out that the urban environment has deteriorated and faces the prospect of much worse, pressuring the survival of native species, and threatening water and food security.

Other than the urban threat, the degradation made much worse by climate change has damaged native species plants, which they have been overwhelmed by introduced species. The number of species on the threatened list has increased by 8 percent since 2016. Up to 80 percent of Australia’s coastal salt marshes have been lost. Australia has lost more mammal special than any other continent.

The report doesn’t mince words when it calls out the lack of political leadership. One example is the failure of the Murray-Darling Basin plan that was supposed to conserve 45o gigalitres of water. It gave way to vested interests. Overall, government has not been doing nearly enough to address the crisis.

“There is insufficient overall investment and lack of coordination to be able to adequately address the growing impacts [and the level of investment in biodiversity conservation do not match the scale of the challenge,” the report says.

The situation demands more protected areas, environmental laws that have impact and are strongly enforced. Australia needs far more investment in environmental solutions.

There must be an end to carbon trading as the proposed answer. It has failed in practice. Carbon trading is really an application of the notion that emissions can be reduced by relying only on the market mechanism and avoiding government responsibility. At most, carbon trading can only be part of the solution.

Australian Academy of Science president Chennupati Jagadeish said the report was “sobering reading” and urged the government to go further on climate change action.

Current Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will release the Labor government’s policy today. Labor did go into the election campaign with a stronger policy than the Coalition. But critics say this is still not enough, and the State of the Environment Report indicates they are right, and that the Albanese government must lift its game.

It is still not too late. Collaboration between government and the community can make all the difference. Lifting investment, improving data collection, and building community participation in the effort to turn the situation around are critical. Measures must also be taken to ensure major polluters are stopped, that dirty industries and technologies are wound down and replaced by clean ones.

Australia’s future depends on this. And it is in our interests to set an example to the world. Failure to deal with the crisis threatens global economic and social collapse, and at the worst, the survival of humanity.

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All the pretense over progress at Glasgow’s COP 26 talks can’t hide that it has been a monumental failure, exposing the real nature of many of the world’s leaders. They are far short of what the world needs today.

The so-called Glasgow Climate Pact has betrayed us to an at least 2.4 Degree Celsius rise in global temperature.

A rise of this size will cause disastrous damage to Earth’s environment and severely damage the human economy and society.

Discussion and initiative as put into the hands of the corporations, among who were the fossil fuel companies and lenders who finance the creation of carbon. The corporate lobby turned out to be the single biggest block at the talks, and its primary objective was to protect their businesses by ensuring that Glasgow falls into line with its interests.

The promise to cut to zero emissions has been pushed decades into the future, when it is critical that there is a major drop by 2030, if the temperature rise is going to be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Pact has left it open to increase the amount of fossil fuel burnt in the meantime.

All who are serious about doing much more than this, are left with no other choice but to continue and lift the anti. This is no time to give up. We must find ways to force the issue through the will of public opinion and action.

Part of this is to call out the failures at Glasgow and put forward realistic alternatives.

All the talk about compromise fails to admit that there is no room for compromise. Either you do enough to prevent the catastrophe, or you don’t. Compromising to not do enough is of failure of action. Instead of a promise for adequate action we got a promise for more talk.

Even if there had been an agreement to lower emissions in the short run, it would still not be enough. Who is going to do it and who is going to cover the cost. These are important questions, and they were there in Glasgow.

Leaders of industrialised western nations are trying to offload as much as they can on poorer nations. Pressure is put on China and India to do much more. Both are wrong approaches that serve to take attention away from what others should be doing.

The measure of success must not be framed in terms of nations but on population, where the effort is to reduce the per person carbon footprint. This approach would mean that the burden is distributed fairly, with the wealthier shouldering more. The best measurement to set goals, to use per capita gross domestic product. This would allow some breathing space for smaller and poorer nations, where most of the population has contributed little to the rise of emissions. This was ignored in Glasgow.

It was important to reach an agreement to set up a fund, big enough to help poorer nations make the transition away from fossil fuels and to sustainable economies. There will be a fund. But it is too small to have much impact. About a third of the at least $US300 trillion needed to make a serious impact has been offered, without a guarantee that it will be delivered.

Even worse, the Glasgow Climate Pact commits to channeling help mainly through the private sector. It will not take the form of government-to-government aid. Instead, there will be loans provided by private financial institutions, funding specific projects and according to how much return they to the investment, rather than setting emission reduction as the priority. This opens the door to abuse and corruption. Expect any of the projects to be marketed as green and h less in substance.

While making fossil fuels obsolete is important, a transformation of the economy into a sustainable future is necessary. One cannot succeed without the other.

The final failure has been to ignore paying how to build community support for big changes. Only through widespread community participation will this be possible. Everyone must be given a voice, ownership, and be confident that they are being treated fairly. Change must be designed to create new real jobs lift everyone, and there must be mechanisms for participation.

No further proof is needed to understand that it is a dead end to rely in the leadership of big business and most of our politicians. Only a movement of the people, which becomes strong enough to make the change can be the answer.

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