GPs called to action on World Environment Day

Living and working as a GP in Far North Queensland, Dr Nicole Sleeman has seen the health impacts of climate change firsthand.
 
She has seen how the heat impacts her own community – she was part of a fight to save a much-loved, 80-year-old raintree from being destroyed – and she is aware of just how much potential GPs have to be leaders in the fight for the environment.
 
This year, World Environment Day, recognised on 5 June, focuses on the ‘urgent signals the Earth is sending and the signals we choose to send back’.
 
In response, the global campaign is calling on everyone to act now to ‘steer a world already in motion’.
 
For Dr Sleeman, who is Chair of RACGP Specific Interests Climate and Environmental Medicine, the day is an important reminder that human health is ‘intimately connected to, and ultimately dependent upon, the health of ecosystems’.
 
‘In this time when the damage, destruction and loss of nature is occurring at an alarming rate, we are called to be healers beyond our consult rooms, and to share the message that people cannot be healthy without a healthy planet,’ she told newsGP.
 
‘Climate change is our greatest health challenge and the RACGP urgently calls for an end to fossil fuels and investment in renewable energy.
 
‘The RACGP is committed to actively working towards a “net zero” healthcare system and to supporting GPs to be climate health leaders.’
 
The college has committed to net zero emissions by 2040.
 
It forms part of the RACGP Advocacy Plan 2026–30, which calls for the adoption a ‘health-in-all-policies’ approach, funding the full the implementation of the National Health and Climate Strategy, and ending the expansion of any new fossil fuel infrastructure and production.
 
Dr Sleeman, who lives in Gimuy (Cairns), said ‘GPs can be environmental advocates in their own communities’, raising awareness of the importance of nature for community health.
 
‘Trees and canopy cover reduce urban heat and improve air quality, and greenspace and nature prescriptions positively impact health and wellbeing,’ she said.
 
‘World Environment Day is a call to listen to what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people tell us over and over again: that caring for Country, is caring for ourselves. 
 
‘We are not separate from nature; we are part of her. In acting to help heal her, we act to heal ourselves.’
 
Her call to action comes as new data revealed that, despite Australians’ high climate awareness, understanding of its health impacts is limited.
 
An online survey of 1164 West Australian adults, conducted in July 2022, found 46.4% think climate change will harm their own health within 10 years, and 49.4% have given little thought to health impacts.
 
‘Many anticipate worsening environmental conditions but fail to connect these with health outcomes,’ researchers concluded.
 
‘This disconnect highlights the need for targeted communication to improve climate-health literacy and support adaptive public behaviours.’
 
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