Healthy Climate, Healthy People
We are health professionals calling for urgent and fair climate action
for real health gains - now, and for our future.
Click here for the Health Professionals Joint Call for Action on Climate Change and Health
Newstream
Submission on Waka Kotahi Cycling Action Plan
OraTaiao has made a submission on the Waka Kotahi Action Plan. Overall, we believe the Plan is excellent and we strongly endorse it. We do however make additional recommendations around urgency, co-governance, a systems approach, funding, guidance for local government, road renewals, grassroots involvement, equity, e-bikes, cycle path maintenance, intersections and roundabouts, car sharing and land use.
To read our submission, prepared by Dr James Hamill, Liz Springford and Dr Matt Jenks, click on the headline above.
Written by Grant Brookes
May 30, 2023
OraTaiao Climate Action Kōrero 3 with Tiana Jakicevich & Kaeden Watts: Behind the scenes at COP27
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) brings together world leaders from government, business and civil society for an annual Conference of the Parties (COP). This conference is the largest event held by the UN and is billed as “the foremost global forum for multilateral discussion of climate change matters.”
But what actually goes on at COP? How much can we believe the pronouncements of the politicians? What's the reality behind the media headlines? As carbon emissions and seas keep rising, is COP even worthwhile?
In 2022, Kaeden Watts (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāi Tūhoe) and Tiana Jakicevich (Te Whakatōhea, Ngāti Kahungungu ki te Wairoa and Croatian) were the two rangatahi Māori delegates at COP27 in Egypt. OraTaiao was honoured to host them at our monthly Climate Action Kōrero webinar in May, where they shared their experience as members of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change. Their insights are invaluable for climate change campaigners in Aotearoa as we look ahead to COP28 in Dubai at the end of the year.
Written by Grant Brookes
May 19, 2023
Free Fares Coalition Submits Petition to "Keep Half Price Fares for Everyone, for Good!"
The Aotearoa Collective for Public Transport Equity submitted our petition to keep half prices fares for all to the petitions committee on Thursday 11th May.
OraTaiao Executive Board member and Occupational Therapist Romelli Rodriguez-Jolly spoke in support - "Half price fares are a public health intervention".
See the petition here: https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/keep-half-price-fares-for-everyone-for-good
Written by Romelli Rodriguez-Jolly
May 17, 2023
NZ failing to protect health from climate change impacts – world health body
MEDIA RELEASE, 17 May 2023
Ahead of UN climate change negotiations in Dubai at the end of the year, a report from the Global Climate and Health Alliance has delivered a damning assessment of New Zealand’s commitment to a healthy, climate safe future.
Written by Grant Brookes
May 17, 2023
Submissions
Submission on Waka Kotahi Cycling Action Plan
OraTaiao has made a submission on the Waka Kotahi Action Plan. Overall, we believe the Plan is excellent and we strongly endorse it. We do however make additional recommendations around urgency, co-governance, a systems approach, funding, guidance for local government, road renewals, grassroots involvement, equity, e-bikes, cycle path maintenance, intersections and roundabouts, car sharing and land use.
To read our submission, prepared by Dr James Hamill, Liz Springford and Dr Matt Jenks, click on the headline above.
Written by Grant Brookes
May 30, 2023
Free Fares Coalition Submits Petition to "Keep Half Price Fares for Everyone, for Good!"
The Aotearoa Collective for Public Transport Equity submitted our petition to keep half prices fares for all to the petitions committee on Thursday 11th May.
OraTaiao Executive Board member and Occupational Therapist Romelli Rodriguez-Jolly spoke in support - "Half price fares are a public health intervention".
See the petition here: https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/keep-half-price-fares-for-everyone-for-good
Written by Romelli Rodriguez-Jolly
May 17, 2023
"Global cooperation to secure the 1.5°C limit" – Submission on NZ’s Approach to International Climate Change Negotiations 2023
Ahead of the COP28 international climate change negotiations which are due to be held in Dubai at the end of the year, OraTaiao has responded to a consultation request from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Manatū Aorere (MFAT).
OraTaiao believes that New Zealand's approach to COP28 must recognise it as a tool for global cooperation to secure the humanly adaptable limit of 1.5°C of global warming, not a forum for competitive trade negotiations. And before using international platforms to promote ourselves as climate leaders – when there is not credible substance to this claim across all sectors and gases – we must first be the change we want to see globally.
OraTaiao has therefore provided MFAT with comprehensive advice. Making human health a key focus of urgent climate action can guide their approach on a wide range of questions in Dubai – including, but not limited to:
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Siding with the Global South (including the Alliance of Small Island States)
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Taking direction from hapū and iwi, ensuring that Māori are fully resourced to participate at COP28 in the ways that they determine.
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Supporting diplomacy and cooperation, instead of continuing down the path of increasing destructive militarisation
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Committing to much faster reductions in our own agricultural emissions
OraTaiao's submission was produced by lead author Liz Springford, with the support of Dr James Hamill, Summer Wright, Dr Dermot Coffey, Dr Scott Metcalfe and our partners in the New Zealand Climate Action Network. It is available here.
Written by Grant Brookes
May 14, 2023
"Don't undermine the aims of the ETS" – Submission on the Climate Change Response (Late Payment Penalties and Industrial Allocation) Amendment Bill
The World Health Organisation describes climate change as the biggest risk to population health and healthcare systems of the 21st century, and our response to climate change offers an unmissable opportunity to improve population health, close equity gaps within society and give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
The approach of increasing free credits contained in this Amendment Bill will undermine the most basic aims of the ETS and make our national and international targets more difficult to meet. OraTaiao recommends amending the Bill to signal to industry that essential change cannot be left until the last minute and that a sustainable long-term plan to transition off fossil fuels is needed immediately.
Our submission, prepared by OraTaiao Co-convenor Dr Dermot Coffey, is available here.
Written by Grant Brookes
April 07, 2023
Publications
Designing a healthy response to climate change
Article by Dr Dermot Coffey. NZMJ Digest Issue 99. Read here (PDF).
Written by Romelli Rodriguez-Jolly
December 16, 2020
Nurses are crucial in the fight against climate change
Viewpoint by Michael Brenndorfer. Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand, Vol 26, No 9, October 2020. Read here (PDF).
Written by Romelli Rodriguez-Jolly
October 15, 2020
New Zealand asthma guidelines support use of environmentally friendly inhalers
Article by Dr Dermot Coffey. New Zealand Doctor, 7 October 2020. Read here.
Written by Romelli Rodriguez-Jolly
October 08, 2020
Scorecard for NZ Election 2020 - Climate Change and Health
Scorecard and report by OraTaiao: NZ Climate & Health Council rating political parties' policies on climate change and health for NZ General Election 2020. See here (PDF).
Written by Romelli Rodriguez-Jolly
September 28, 2020
Our Work
OraTaiao: The NZ Climate and Health Council works to highlight in Aotearoa New Zealand and globally:
- The negative impacts of climate change on health.
- Health sector carbon reduction and sustainability.
- The health and equity gains from health-centred climate action, for example transformed food systems.
- The impacts of climate change on those that already experience disadvantage or ill-health (equity impacts).
We also do work to inform NZ's contribution to international climate action; highlight the climate and wider...
Get involved with OraTaiao
OraTaiao: The NZ Climate and Health Council is a not-for-profit incorporated society that receives no external funding.
Activity largely depends on volunteer time, and membership donations to allow employment of a part-time coordinator.
There are many ways you can support our work including: donations, volunteering, and spreading the climate-health message amongst work-mates, friends, whānau and your community.
You can also consider offsetting your unavoidable carbon emissions.
Become a member here
Contact Us
For general Information:
[email protected]
Co-convenors:
Dr Dermot Coffey
[email protected] 
Summer Wright
[email protected]
Media requests welcome.
