Students across the country have gone on strike and held protests over the lack of political action to address climate change.

Students from all capital cities and dozens of regional areas headed to public places, Parliament House and their local MP’s office for the strike.

By 2030, when the Coalition’s target of 26 to 28 per cent reduction in carbon emissions is expected to be reached, the teens of today will already be dealing with the problems created by climate change.

The world is on track to reach warm by 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels between 2030 and 2052 if current increases continue.

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At the same time, a new report Australian says government’s policy inaction on climate change is threatening lives.

The report by 19 leading scientists from 13 universities and research institutes has examined for the first time Australia’s broad progress on climate change and human health.

“Australia is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on health. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, changing infectious disease patterns, increasing food insecurity, and migration and population displacement all threaten Australians’ health and wellbeing and increase the burden on our health system,” say researchers Dr Ying Zhang, from the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health, and Associate Professor Paul Beggs from Macquarie University’s Department of Environmental Sciences.

Policy inaction is exacerbating or failing to arrest a host of climate change-affected risk factors and vulnerabilities in humans and the environment. These are linked to rising rates of death and hospitalisations from infectious diseases, cardiovascular disease and suicides, they report.

“Ongoing delays in confronting these challenges exacerbate both the extent of the adverse health outcomes that they may cause and the scale of the responses that they will ultimately require,” the report states.

Tackling the causes and consequences of climate change presents significant opportunities for Australian policymakers according to the inaugural Professor of Planetary Health at the University of Sydney, Dr Tony Capon.

“From a health perspective, taking action to curb emissions will accrue numerous population-level benefits, such as reductions in cardiovascular and respiratory disease rates, with associated healthcare cost savings,” he says.

“Further, proactive measures to increase the resilience and adaptive capabilities of Australian health systems and local communities are likely to generate long-term economic savings, partly due to their positive impact on mental health.”