UQ researchers co-authors of IPCC Sixth Assessment Report – UQ News
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the second installment of its sixth assessment report, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
The Faculty of Science Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and Dr Nina Lansbury from the Faculty of Medicine are among 270 scientists from around the world who, as part of Working Group ll, have assessed the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, biodiversity and humanity.
Dr Lansbury said the work builds on the Task Force I report published in August 2021, which concluded that climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying.
“Part of my work focuses on the impacts of climate change in the Torres Strait. This was one of the areas we really wanted to focus on in this latest assessment, as this is a community in a place that is already feeling the effects of climate change,” said Dr Lansbury .
“The supply of fresh water is a problem as there were wells on some of the sand islands in Australia which are now contaminated with salt water due to rising sea levels.”
Dr Lansbury said there were concerns about how health systems will respond to heat waves and increased emergency presentations during these and other extreme events.
“If you think about the bushfire season which happened at the end of 2019/2020, there were 33 deaths, but there were more than 400 deaths related to respiratory problems and thousands of people sick. presented to the emergency room due to heat and particulate air pollution,” said Dr Lansbury.
“When I talk to people involved in dealing with extreme events, which we call disasters, they often talk about the need for long-term service funding to prevent the disaster from actually happening.”
“Preparedness is what we really need to think about and those are really deep issues with long-term investments that would be needed to be ready to deal with the dangers.”
Adaptation and resilience to climate change is a complex problem that requires complex responses and there is no single solution, Dr Lansbury said.
“In Australia we have a population concentrated around the east coast, but we also have significant populations in regional, rural and remote areas that don’t have access to the same resources, so there’s also an equity issue. “, said Dr. Lansbury.
“Urgent answers are needed, and this report is truly a call to action, but we have hundreds of researchers who have come together over three years to write this important report, and I don’t think we would if we didn’t have hopes.”
Audio/video extracts are available here.
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