I rise to speak on this motion moved by the member for Mackellar today and I commend her for this important motion. The World Health Organization has called climate change the biggest threat to global health this century. We are already seeing this across the globe, with record-breaking heat waves, fires and droughts in Europe, China and North America. Deadly floods in Pakistan have killed more than 1,400 people and displaced up to 50 million. Famine in the Horn of Africa has put 22 million people at risk of starvation. Rising sea levels are putting the very existence of our Pacific neighbours at risk.

In Australia, in just the past five years, we've had a record-breaking drought so severe that, in 2019, the Murray-Darling Basin experienced its lowest water level on record. This was followed by record-breaking floods, including in Lismore. In between the two, of course, we had the Black Summer bushfires. I have spoken many times in this place about the impact that those fires had on our region and on my constituents here in Canberra. I have spoken of the choking smoke that blanketed Canberra for weeks, dimming our daylight and making our air the most poisonous in the world. The air quality meant that people were directed to stay in their homes or to relocate if they had underlying health conditions and to use their air conditioning—something which many people didn't have or weren't able to do. The full health impacts will still be unknown to many.

Unfortunately, these disasters are here to stay, with fires, floods and drought projected to get worse and more frequent in a changing climate. We know climate change affects the clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter that we rely on for our health. The World Health Organization has warned that, between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause 250,000 additional deaths every year from malnutrition, disease and heat stress. The World Health Organization estimates the direct damage costs to health to be between US$2 billion and US$4 billion a year by 2030. It is a terrifying scenario given the strain our health system is going through coping with the pandemic already. Developing countries with weak health infrastructure will suffer the most. But we know that with climate action we can stop this trajectory.

After a decade of policy paralysis on climate, Australians voted for climate action in the May election. Australians voted for an Albanese Labor government that understands the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change and will embrace them both. I am pleased that Labor is delivering on our promise to take action. Our climate bill to enshrine into law an emissions reduction target of 43 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050 has already passed through the House of Representatives. As we've said, this ambitious target is a floor, not a ceiling, and if we can do better, we absolutely will.

We are working on getting more electric vehicles on our roads, which will immediately improve our air quality and health in our cities and towns. Our support of renewable energy will help firm the grid to help us better cope with climate variables such as heat waves. For too long, the community has been forced to take the lead on these issues. I want to acknowledge the work of the Women in Climate and Health Network that operates in Canberra, which hosts regular breakfast events, many of which I've attended, about ways in which the community can address these issues, taking matters into their own hands. We're really fortunate to have such a brilliant network of women showing leadership and raising these concerns in our community.

I'm proud to be part of a government that will now begin to provide the national leadership we need on these issues. The health minister, Mark Butler, has been an advocate of a national climate health strategy. Pleasingly, he's said that he will make climate change a national health priority. That is something he's already started working on with state and territory health ministers. We must work with the states and territories because they hold responsibility for much of our health system delivery, including hospital and ambulance services. Many states and territories have demonstrated their commitment to action by releasing climate change adaptation plan strategies, frameworks and reviews, with health as a core enabling objective. As part of this, the health minister wants to reduce the direct emissions footprint of the health sector and prepare the sector for the impact of climate change, especially heat related challenges and the synergies between good public health policy and good climate policy. This includes active transport and diet. This is a crisis that our world must begin to address together. I am so pleased that, after 10 years of inaction, the Albanese Labor government is giving it the priority it deserves.