New data highlights health and climate concerns as a result of toxic pollutants from gas and coal industries. CAHA Executive Director Fiona Armstrong comments on the data released by the National Pollutant Inventory in an article by Thom Mitchell for New Matilda: "What this data shows is that toxic pollutants that harm health are on the rise from both the coal and gas industries, with huge increases in particulate and chemical pollution". Read more here.

Please see here for the historic Paris Agreement which recognises the first time the desirability of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. Below a comment provided to media on behalf of CAHA and further below some comments from civil society leaders from The Guardian, and others from the Australian civil society COP network. (Thanks to James Lorenz, Prue Pickering and Sam Webb). "The Paris Agreement is a positive response to the grave threats we face from our fossil fuelled societies and...

  CAHA Vice President Dr Peter Sainsbury is in Paris attending many of the side events accompanying the UNFCCC COP21 global climate change talks. He shares some reflections here on the process, stimulated by a presentation by UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figures to one of these side events. "At the beginning of the second week of the COP21 negotiations in Paris, Executive Secretary of the UNFCC, Christiana Figueres, addressed a group of philanthropic funders. I was fortunate enough to be...

Editor: Melissa Sweet Author: Grace FitzGerald (republished from Croakey Health Blog)                       It's not yet summer, and soaring temperatures and bushfires, in Australia and elsewhere, are focussing attention on the health threats of climate change. Ahead of the United Nations climate conference (COP21) in Paris, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a statement warning that climate change is already causing tens of thousands of deaths every year. These deaths...

A report from the ˜Environmentally sustainable practice in hospitals and community settings' seminar 15 May 2015 Janet Roden, Professional Officer in the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWN&MA), and Peter Sainsbury, Director of Population Health in South Western Sydney Local Health District, met in 2014 on a Global Green and Healthy Hospitals webinar organised by CAHA Convenor Fiona Armstrong. Out of that meeting the two of them organised an ˜Environmental Health Seminar' attended by 50 health professionals at Liverpool Hospital...

What does the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report mean for health in Australia? This post first appeared on the blog Croakey on 31 March 2014 A new report from the IPCC issues the world one of its most stark warnings on climate change to date. Leaked drafts suggest this report will be one of the IPCC's most stark warnings yet issued on climate change, especially as it relates to human health. Authors of the health chapter say...

The new short film, The Human Cost of Power, a project of the Climate and Health Alliance and Public Health Association of Australia, will be screened in Sydney on 20th November 2013. An event at the University of Notre Dame will be the first NSW screening of the film that explores the health and climate impacts of coal and gas. When: 6.00pm-7.30pm Wednesday 20th November 2013 Where: Lecture Theatre NDS14/201, University of Notre Dame, 160 Oxford St, Darlinghurst NSW. Download...

By CAHA Convenor, Fiona Armstrong "I had the pleasure of attending the September meeting of the Victorian Green Health Round Table Group this month and was inspired by some of the actions being taken within Victorian hospitals to reduce their environmental footprint and save resources. Individuals from around fifteen major hospital groups met at Barwon Health in Geelong to discuss current initiatives and to hear from Professor John Agar on the world leading green dialysis program run at Barwon Health....