Australia’s fossil fuel conflict: exporting pollution while cleaning up at home

The 2023 Intergenerational Report (IGR) positions climate change and the net zero transformation as one of five major forces shaping Australia’s future economic prosperity — alongside population ageing, technological and digital transformation, rising demand for care and support services, and geopolitical risk and fragmentation.

It’s clear that tackling climate change is also a major health imperative, given the significant direct and indirect health impacts already being observed across the globe, including from extreme weather events. These extreme events also have an impact on power, transport and communication systems, which in turn affect our ability to meet an increased demand for health services – just at the time when people need health services the most.

Here at home, we’ve recently experienced unprecedented bushfires and smoke pollution, record levels of rainfall and floods (and an outbreak of mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis) (here, here and here). This has resulted in fatalities, exacerbations of chronic diseases, and the mental health impacts from loss of loved ones, livelihoods and expectations of a safe and stable future (here and here). This latter issue extends beyond those directly affected by extreme events; indeed, climate-anxiety is an increasing concern among young Australians.

Overseas, health impacts of climate change are even more significant, particularly in lower income countries that struggle to supply the basic health infrastructure (here, here and here). We can take our health infrastructure for granted in Australia, such as safe drinking water and sanitation services. Australia’s new international development policy pledges to increase our climate investments and better address climate risks in our region.

But what is missing from the Australian public policy debate about climate change and its impact on health are the health impacts that arise overseas as a result of our fossil fuel exports – coal and, increasingly, gas. 

Globally, more than 4 million deaths were attributable to outdoor fine particle (PM_2.5) air pollution in 2019 (here). It is estimated 1.05 million deaths could be avoided by eliminating PM_2.5 from the burning of coal (14.1%), oil and natural gas (13.2%). 

Although there has been some improvement in annual exposure to outdoor PM_2.5 in South-East Asia, East Asia and Oceania, statistics show that South Asia consistently endures exposures substantially higher than other regions (here).

Australia is the world’s largest exporter of both coal and liquified natural gas, producing 7.8% of the world’s coal and 3.7% of the world’s gas. The export revenue from thermal coal and liquified natural gas is forecast to be $38 billion and $68 billion respectively in 2023–24, lower than it has been in previous years. 

This means our continued reliance on fossil fuel export revenue is shortening the lives of tens of thousands of people in other countries every year from the PM_2.5 emissions arising from the combustion of our fossil fuel exports. And that is without considering the health impacts of other products of fossil fuel combustion, such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and the health impacts of climate change.

Returning to the 2023 IGR, we see that Australian fossil fuel exports are expected to decline in the future, but the speed and scale of this decline depends on the effectiveness of global efforts to tackle climate change. 

If the world acts to keep global heating below 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels, demand for Australian thermal coal is expected to be less than 1% of current levels by 2063, and about 50% lower if action limits it to 2℃ (see the IGR Chart 5.10, below). 

For gas, the decline in demand will depend on whether countries use liquified natural gas for electricity generation as part of their transition.

To ensure Australia remains a high income country in this changing global energy market context, Australia urgently needs a plan to reduce reliance on revenue from these fossil fuel exports which will inevitably decline in future.

Reducing our reliance on this source of foreign revenue now will have the additional benefit of immediately reducing health harms caused by air pollution from the burning of Australian fossil fuels in other countries.

In 2022, Australia updated its Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contribution to reduce emissions by 43% from 2005 levels by 2030 and reaffirmed its commitment to net zero by 2050. But Australia’s focus on reducing domestic greenhouse gas emissions while seemingly ignoring responsibility for exported emissions is morally wrong.

To be a globally responsible nation, we should rapidly transition from being part of the problem with climate change and air pollution to being part of the solution.

And that includes rapid diversification of our sources of foreign revenue, if Australia is to be a credible host for COP31 in 2026.

Australia has large reserves of minerals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements which are key to clean energy technologies, and abundant sources of renewable energy and open spaces, meaning it is well placed to develop a renewable export industry and power transition to a more sustainable world within and beyond Australia’s borders.

Getting on this positive path will help to address rising eco-anxiety among young Australians. 

It will also ensure economic prosperity for future generations of Australians of all ages, noting that the transition must be socially just to avoid entrenching existing social inequities or creating new ones. 

We are morally obliged to get this right for current and future generations, both here in Australia and overseas.

Angie Bone FAFPHM is a public health physician and Associate Professor of Practice in Planetary Health at Monash Sustainable Development Institute in Melbourne. She is a member of Doctors for the Environment Australia and the Public Health Association of Australia.

John Thwaites AM is a Professorial Fellow at Monash University, and Chair of the Monash Sustainable Development Institute and Climateworks Centre.

Tony Capon FAFPHM directs the Monash Sustainable Development Institute. He is a public health physician, a member of the MJA Editorial Advisory Group, and a member of the Expert Advisory Committee for the Climate and Health Alliance.