Australian Medical Association Declares Climate Change A Health Emergency

We've been hearing about climate change for nearly a decade now and there have been loads of opinions about it.

Some reckon it will spell the end of humanity while others believe it's nothing to worry about and we should just keep going about our merry way.

Well, the Australian Medical Association has lended its opinion on the matter and it's not positive for anyone. The AMA has declared that climate change is now a human health emergency - which is a pretty big deal.

AMA President Tony Bartone says the scientific evidence is clear: "There is no doubt that climate change is a health emergency. The AMA accepts the scientific evidence on climate change and its impact on human health and human wellbeing.

"Climate change will cause higher mortality and morbidity from heat stress.

"Climate change will cause injury and mortality from increasingly severe weather events. Climate change will cause increases in the transmission of vector-borne diseases. Climate change will cause food insecurity resulting from declines in agricultural outputs.

"Climate change will cause a higher incidence of mental ill-health. These effects are already being observed internationally and in Australia."

That's no shortage of ill-effects from climate change.

The decision to declare climate change a human health emergency was passed nearly unanimously within the Association.

Mr Bartone wouldn't be drawn on whether the Morrison government was doing enough to combat the effects of climate change in Australia because 'this issue is clouded in conjecture and conflicting reports'.

What he did say about Aussie politics was that MPs needed to put aside their differences and work together to help save the planet.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder and now director emeritus of the Potsdam Climate Institute, told the UK broadcaster: "The climate math is brutally clear: While the world can't be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally wounded by negligence until 2020."

And at a reception for Commonwealth foreign ministers recently, Prince Charles echoed the sentiments, saying: "I am firmly of the view that the next 18 months will decide our ability to keep climate change to survivable levels and to restore nature to the equilibrium we need for our survival."

In last year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it was reported that emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be cut by 45 percent by 2030 in a bid to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5°C.