Australia’s heatwave haze
Ellie Drenth
‘I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains'.
‘My country’, the enigmatic poem written by Dorothea Mckellar sometime between 1904 and 1908, is a familiar anecdote describing the renowned harshness of the Australian landscape. And harsh it is: every year, we see devastating footage of animals fleeing bushfires, of people clinging to rooftops whilst floodwaters rise and of drought-stricken cattle that farmers look upon despairingly. As a people, we are familiar with the realities of living in this country and the unpredictable weather this entails, which is why it surprises most people to hear that fires are not the biggest contributor of nature-related deaths in Australia. Nor are floods, droughts, storms, or cyclones. It’s heat. And it’s not just impacting this country.
Lacking the shock factor of other natural disasters, heatwaves are often referred to as a silent killer. In a frightening sign of things to come, the past few summers in the Northern Hemisphere have produced devastating heat waves, causing over 62,000 deaths in Europe in 2022. Turning on the news in 2024 means watching in horror as people collapse under 50 degree plus weather in India; hearing of over 1,300 people dying whilst completing a religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia; and seeing grieving families mourning the loss of relatives to heat stress in the Mediterranean. Global average temperatures have risen steadily over the past few decades, and this year is already likely to beat 2023 as the hottest year on record. Extreme heat events are predicted to increase in frequency, length and severity as our climate warms, and the effects of this are not just going to be felt in the future, or in other parts of the world - they’re being felt now, and they’re being felt in Australia.
Heat breaks down the body’s ability to function correctly, and leads to physical illnesses in the form of dizziness, nausea, fainting, and an increased risk of experiencing a stroke or heart attack. What is less considered is the impact heat has on our mental health, on our social dynamics, and on our economy in the form of ‘lost productivity’. But how does heat contribute to this?
Part of it comes down to geography. With an increasing number of people living in urban areas, in particular regions of urban sprawl, poor planning is directly contributing to a phenomenon known as the ‘heat island effect’. This is where urban spaces are warmer than surrounding areas due to the compounding effects of heat being trapped through pavement, roads, dark roofs, and from human activities that generate heat such as transportation and running electrical appliances. In Western Sydney, it is typically 6-10°C hotter than the rest of the city during extreme heat events due to a lack of tree canopy coverage, minimal green spaces, and dense housing developments with poor thermal design.
The locations of urban heat island effects are usually in relationship with socioeconomic status, with higher income areas typically home to wide, tree-lined streets, better public transport connections and clusters of cool, leafy playgrounds. Areas with a higher vulnerability index, an ABS system that ranks areas in terms of their relative advantage or disadvantage, repeatedly report higher average temperatures and a greater number of deaths during extreme heat events. The Australian Climate Service also recently released a Heat Health Index that shows a strong correlation between disadvantaged areas and a vulnerability to heat illnesses.
We also know that there is a gender imbalance when it comes to heat impacts. The Asian Development Bank has released a detailed visual report on the unequal impacts of heat, with the imbalance more pronounced in countries with high numbers of informal settlements. Due to biological makeup, women are more susceptible to heat illness as is; however, this is further compounded by reduced access to economic resources and social and cultural norms, including the expectation of unpaid care, cultural dress practices and limited choice in employment conditions. Several studies have also indicated a higher incidence of intimate partner violence during extreme heat events, the impacts of which are experienced overwhelmingly by women and children.
Whilst Australia may have more economic resources than some of our neighboring counterparts, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels, as we are still losing members of our community to heat illnesses in greater incidences each year. Advocacy bodies such as Sweltering Cities are lobbying for cooler suburbs and heat-safe homes, and local councils and community groups are taking matters into their own hands. Over the 23/24 Summer, the City of Sydney ran a pilot of ‘mobile cooling hubs’ in collaboration with local health services to provide a place of respite for vulnerable community members. The City of Melbourne, home to not one but two Chief Heat Officers, also tried a range of initiatives, including activating community centers as cool spaces, distributing heat kits of useful cooling items to those experiencing homelessness, and the creation of a cool routes map.
It goes without saying that the best way to reduce heat health hazards is to halt global warming through climate change mitigation. However, we also know that almost 1.5 degrees of warming have been locked in. Alongside tackling decarbonisation, we must also be focussing on climate adaptation and ensuring that all members of our community - but particularly those that are most vulnerable - are protected from increasing instances of deadly climate-related heat events. Aside from the obvious social and health benefits, this will go a long way to increasing social cohesion, growing the economy, and ensuring Australia is a climate-adapted country.
Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go.
Ellie is a passionate environmental justice advocate and currently works in climate change adaptation for the City of Melbourne, though she has also previously held roles as a Park Ranger and Climate Change Consultant. She completed a Bachelor of Environmental Science (Environmental Management & Sustainability) at Deakin University, and recently graduated from UNSW with a Masters of Environmental Management with Excellence. Her interests lie in developing equitable and inclusive environmental policies and programs that embed a gender lens and youth voice.
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