This summer’s record-setting heatwaves are a deadly reminder that climate change is well and truly here.
Across Victoria and New South Wales, temperatures have climbed near 50 degrees. If you’ve been outside in heat like this, you won’t be surprised to know that when it’s that hot, your heart works a lot harder. The heat can make you dizzy, cause heatstroke, and even increase your risk of heart attack. Pregnant people, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly are especially at risk.
This heat can kill.
My neighbours and I are lucky to have air conditioning, but not everybody has that privilege. In places where air conditioning and refrigeration are harder to come by, the impact of heatwaves is horrifying: one study suggests that a single heatwave day in India could cause 3,400 deaths – and without a chance to cool down or recover, a five day heatwave could kill 30,000 people.
Here in Australia, heatwaves put strain on our emergency departments, kill native animals and livestock, and fan the flames of bushfires that destroy people’s homes and livelihoods.
A local and a global crisis
In the Global South, communities are experiencing all these same impacts – but they’re being hit even worse. In Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, years of drought have driven a food crisis that has affected tens of millions of people, forcing many of them to leave their homes in search of food.
Research from global medical journal The Lancet shows that some Global South countries are experiencing almost thirty more heatwave days per year than they would without climate change, with small island states like Pacific countries being hit hardest.
As fossil fuel-driven climate change warms our planet, extreme heatwave days are getting more common. But while ordinary people are facing the dangers of climate change-fuelled extreme heat, big coal, oil and gas corporations are rolling in their profits.
Who pays the cost?
In Australia, the annual cost of climate disasters is now $38 billion, equivalent to $3,500 per household on average each and every year. For many communities in the Global South, the costs of climate disasters are so high that communities simply cannot recover financially.
In Vanuatu, a shocking three severe cyclones hit in 2023, costing nearly 70% of their annual GDP in recovery costs. Ni Vanuatu women are doing everything they can to rebuild their lives, but the resourcing gap is stark and grows bigger as every new climate disaster hits.
Meanwhile, big fossil fuel companies receive billions in government subsidies, pay less tax in Australia than the average teacher or nurse, and funnel their profits to rich shareholders offshore.
They are profiting from destruction.
Let’s make big polluters pay
It’s not fair that the corporations most responsible are forcing communities to front the costs of climate change. It’s past time they paid to fix the damage they’ve caused.
I hope you will stand with me – and demand the government take action. Let’s make sure the big corporations polluting our climate are made to pay their fair share to support women and impacted communities.
It’s time that big polluting companies like coal, oil and gas corporations were made to pay the costs of their climate destruction. Communities around the world shouldn’t have to foot the bill for a problem they haven’t caused. Take action now and call on PM Albanese to make big polluters pay.