Eight years of the MJA–Lancet Countdown: the evidence on climate and health is clear

This week marks the publication of the most recent article in the multiyear collaboration of the MJA with the Lancet on climate and health.

This year, we have brought all these articles together in one collection page, which gives a sense of the diversity and strength of this collaboration.

Starting with the first Countdown article in 2018 — The MJA–Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: Australian policy inaction threatens lives, through to this year’s The 2026 Oceania report of the MJA-Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: children already impacted, with a lifetime of exposure to come, the articles provide an essential resource for anyone interested in the relationship between climate and health.

The MJA-Lancet Countdown shows climate change is a health issue

There is no doubt that climate change, or what is more accurately now called the climate crisis, is adversely affecting health—in Australia, globally, and particularly in our region where the climate consequences are especially catastrophic. It is affecting our daily lives, with extreme weather that we have come to expect as the new normal. As I write this, a supercharged El Nino is breaking records for extreme heat and driving fires across the globe—in the recent European summer and now in Indonesia.

So, while climate policy has previously been considered an issue for policy makers and politicians, this set of Countdown articles make it clear why climate change is a health issue—probably the most important health issue of our time. This is not just at a system level but at an individual level. On a day-to-day basis doctors are seeing glimpses of what this climate change means for their patients, including individuals presenting with climate anxiety, thunderstorm asthma exacerbated by unpredictable, extreme weather events, and the effects of heat and bushfire on health. A recent survey showed that across Australia there is widespread concern about climate change and recognition of climate change as a health challenge but also a lack of consistent understanding of what it means for people individually and how prepared they feel.

A call to action

These articles are both an evidence base and a call to action for doctors and policy makers. The very first 2018 Countdown report called out the all too obvious threats caused by a lack of policy action: “Australia is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on health, and that policy inaction in this regard threatens Australian lives”. This was sadly highlighted in the 2020 report published in the wake of the catastrophic 2019–20 Australian bushfire season. As the report noted: “The 2019–20 bushfires were intense and expansive, resulting in about 450 deaths due to direct injury and air pollution exposure. The air pollution was so severe that it made the NSW annual average PM_2.5 concentration by far the highest in the past 20 years”. The 2022 report continued to sound the alarm noting that  “within just two years, Australia has experienced two unprecedented national catastrophes—the 2019–2020 summer heatwaves and bushfires and the 2021–2022 torrential rains and flooding” but that “Australia’s transition to renewables and zero carbon remains unacceptably slow, and the Australian Government’s continuing failure to produce a national climate change and health adaptation plan places the health and lives of Australians at unnecessary risk.”

Where are we now in 2026? We do, at last, have an Australian National Health and Climate Strategy and a commitment from the current government to make the issue a national health priority. Notwithstanding this strategy, the 2026 report finds that “Despite pockets of progress, Australia and New Zealand have a long way to go to adequately mitigate and adapt to climate change”. Professor Paul Beggs, lead author of this 2026 report hopes the report will spur action, commenting to InSight+ that “The 2026 Oceania report of the MJA–Lancet Countdown provides unique insights into the growing threat to health from climate change in Australia and New Zealand but also highlights opportunities for generational health gains from climate action.”

These comprehensive reports could not be clearer on the urgent need for action on the climate crisis. We hope they will arm medical professionals with the evidence they need to advocate for such action.

View the MJA-Lancet Countdown collection here.

Prof Virginia Barbour is the Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Journal of Australia. She is an Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology. She was previously co-lead of the Office for Scholarly Communication at QUT and was Director of Open Access Australasia until 2024.