'Climate Change and Health'.  Content from interviews with OraTaiao Co-convenors Dr Alex Macmillan and Dr Rhys Jones, RadioNZ Our Changing World 24 June 2015.

Listen here.

OraTaiao's submission on Government’s consultation on setting New Zealand’s post-2020 climate change target.  3 June 2015. 

Appendix here.

The government may be asking for public input on New Zealand's planned action to address climate change in the lead-up to global negotiations this year in Paris, but health is left out of the equation, health groups say.

Doctors, nurses, public health professionals and medical students today expressed alarm about the government’s scrambled public consultation on New Zealand’s post-2020 climate contribution.

OraTaiao: The New Zealand Climate and Health Council warns that negotiations over the Trans- Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) threaten New Zealand’s ability to protect our climate and health.

The Council’s concerns mirror today’s publication of an open letter to the Prime Minister

The biggest threat is the ‘Investor State Dispute Settlement’ (ISDS) provisions. This mechanism allows overseas companies, including fossil fuel companies, to sue our Government if any local law changes might substantially affect their value or profits.

OraTaiao submission states 'the Council’s priority must be creating the infrastructure to support the just transition to a low emissions economy, with particular attention to the most vulnerable households in Wellington. We consider better understanding the implications of climate changes – not just sea level rises and extreme weather events – for our Wellington economy and communities as critical.'

Read full submission here.

OraTaiao 'welcomes Greater Wellington Regional Council’s Climate Change Strategy. We are concerned that the strategy under-emphasises mitigation – reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. There are many sound reasons why rapidly reducing the region’s greenhouse gas emissions is the best course for the region’s economic and social wellbeing – including future-proofing our region and securing real health gains in the short and longer term'.

Read full submission here.

OraTaiao points out that:'To be resilient, modern cities must address man-made climate change and its causes. Our Council has major concerns that the climate and health implications of the RLT Plan have not been addressed. We call on GW to perform an updated Health Impact Assessment of any of its major transport plans, taking into account Climate Change and the wide health effects of transport policies on the community.'

Read full submission here.

Climate change is among the most serious threats to health faced by New Zealand, but it also represents an unprecedented opportunity to improve health, create a fairer society,and reduce costs for the health sector.

Read in full here.

New Zealand can make huge gains for health, now and in the future, by committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A Special Article on climate change and health is published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal. The article clearly demonstrates that rather than being an environmental issue, climate change is fundamentally an issue about people’s survival and their health and wellbeing.

As well as describing risks to the health of New Zealanders from climate change, the paper also highlights opportunities for health and fairness.

Trade deal needs urgent check up. Dr Joshua Freeman. NZ Herald 31 Oct 2014.

Foreign investors would be given a powerful new lever to delay sound new health regulations for their own commercial interests.

More here.

OraTaiao: The New Zealand Climate and Health Council warns that negotiations over the TransPacific
Partnership Agreement (TPPA) threaten New Zealand’s ability to protect our climate and
health.

The Council’s ongoing concerns are voiced in an article in NZ Doctor online today, together with 9
other health professional groups representing doctors, nurses, midwives, medical students,
academics and health promoters.

Bennett, Metcalfe, Jones. Human health discussion paper for climate change series by Engineers for Social Responsibility and the Sustainable Energy Forum...."Without rapid global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (particularly from fossil fuels), the world will breach its carbon budget and may experience high levels of warming (4-6oC by 2100) that render many populated areas of the world unable to support human health. However, if well-planned action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were undertaken globally and in New Zealand, there could be positive impacts not only for limiting climate change, but also for health".

Read in full here.

Climate change and health discussions have featured strongly on day three of the NZ Population Health Congress in Auckland.

Professor Kirk Smith, a lead author on the health chapter in the fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report (AR5), spoke in a plenary session, stressing our responsibility to protect the babies born today from the climate-health impacts that will result from our current business-as usual greenhouse gas (GHG) trajectory.

The Waitemata District Health Board has won an award for ‘Leadership in Environmental Sustainability by a Health Sector Organisation’ at this week’s Population Health Congress in Auckland.

The award, sponsored by OraTaiao: The NZ Climate and Health Council, recognises climate change as a serious and urgent health issue, and commends Waitemata District Health Board for its efforts to improve environmental sustainability and to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint.

Macmillan, Jones, Bennett editorial in the New Zealand Medical Journal, Sept 2014. Read here.

A joint Call to Action on Climate Change and Health for the incoming government by ten New Zealand health organisations was formally released today in the New Zealand Medical Journal, following a week of health and civil society action at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York.

The summit featured a strong contingent of health leaders, including the US Surgeon General, Editor-in-Chief of the Lancet medical journal, and the World Health Organization, as well as being attended by many heads of state.

Ten New Zealand health organisations have released a joint ‘Call to Action on Climate Change and Health’ today.

The ten organisations, including national professional bodies for doctors, nurses, midwives and medical students, say they recognise climate change as an increasingly serious and urgent threat to health and fairness in New Zealand and worldwide. In contrast, they point to specific policy responses that provide exciting opportunities to improve health and create a fairer society.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is holding its first conference on climate change and health at its headquarters in Geneva this week, with New Zealand health experts in attendance.

The conference has support from world leaders including Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, head of the World Bank, and Prince Charles. Conference sessions are being live streamed on the internet to allow health professionals all over the world to participate.

Since 2008 WHO has shown leadership in raising awareness of the health threats posed by climate change. This conference aims to help health communities to protect health in the face of climate change, and to take advantage of the health benefits associated with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.