MEDIA RELEASE [01/07/2010]
Climate Code Green launched by leading experts in climate change and health.
What: Formal Launch of Climate Code Green and press conference
When: Friday 2nd July, 1:35pm
Where: Stanley Burbury Lecture Theatre, Sandy Bay Campus, University of Tasmania.
Members of the press are invited to join experts Professor Tony McMichael, Professor
Michael Kidd and Dr Helen Caldicott in a press conference to hear firsthand the
challenges and opportunities in addressing climate change and health.
Interview and Photo Opportunities will be provided.
The annual Global Health Conference opens in Hobart today, bringing together some of the
nation’s leading experts in climate change and health. They will be addressing 500 medical
students from the Asia-Pacific region, including delegates from countries most likely to feel
the immediate and worst effects of climate change, including Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
Professor Tony McMichael* will be urging delegates to consider the far-reaching effects of
climate change on health and their role as advocates for urgent policy change.
“Climate change poses threats to the foundations of healthy life — our food-yielding
ecosystems on land and sea, our freshwater flows, the natural constraints on infectious
diseases, protection against extreme weather events and natural disasters, and the basis of
social stability.
The health professions have a crucial role to play in research, public education and
policy influence. Doctors everywhere must be alert to this unprecedented process of
human-induced global environmental change, as backdrop to their future professional life —
and their life as citizens.” said Professor McMichael
Together with members of Doctors for the Environment Australia, Professor Michael Kidd*
and Dr Helen Caldicott*, Professor McMichael will launch Climate Code Green, a hard
hitting video animation showing the inseparable link between climate change and health.
Climate Code Green will form the basis for a national student campaign to ensure urgent
and effective action is taken to address the climate emergency.
At the core of effective action on human induced climate change is the need to set rigorous,
scientifically based emissions reduction targets and equitable policies, which support the
needs of developing countries to adapt to the inevitable consequences of climate change.
The impacts of climate change and health are many and varied, direct and indirect.
Australia has been recognised as one of the most vulnerable of all developed countries in
the world, likely to be affected by more severe heatwaves, bush fires, drought and flooding
as well as less direct consequences such as increasing pressure to accept more climate
refugees.
All about …
Professor Tony McMichael
As one of the world’s leading expert on the health impacts of climate change, Associate
Professor Tony McMichael has published many papers on climate change and holds a
number of research positions including Honorary Professor in Climate Change and Human
Health at the University of Copenhagen. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is the holder of an Australia Fellowship from the
National Health and Medical Research Council, and was a recent past President of the
International Society of Environmental Epidemiology.
Professor Michael Kidd AM
Professor Michael Kidd AM is Executive Dean of Health Sciences at Flinders University,
and also works as a general practitioner with a special interest in the care of people with
HIV. Having research and education interests in primary health care, medical informatics
and health policy, Prof Kidd was President of the Royal Australian College of General
Practitioners from 2002-2006.
Dr. Helen Caldicott
Dr Caldicott co-founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility, received 20 honorary
doctoral degrees, has been a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and has authored numerous
books including her most recent revision of ‘If You Love This Planet’, outlining dangerous
environmental trends and a plan to save the Earth.
James Correy, Doctors for the nvironment
