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MEDIA RELEASE: Kids already paying for climate pollution as UN puts Australia's coal and gas approvals under scrutiny

Climate Media Centre

THURSDAY 29 OCTOBER 2026

Australian babies are living through more heatwaves and half of teenagers are worried about climate change, a major health report has found. The findings follow two UN human rights experts asking the Albanese Government to explain how its coal and gas approvals protect young people.

The 2026 MJA–Lancet Countdown report, published today in the Medical Journal of Australia, found infants in Australia went through an average of 4.6 heatwave days a year over the past decade, 66% more than the 1986–2005 baseline. Half of the 16,230 young people aged 14 to 19 surveyed said they were worried or sad about climate change.

On Wednesday, the young people of Generation Justice released a formal allegation letter from UN Special Rapporteurs Elisa Morgera and Astrid Puentes Riaño, issued in response to their human rights complaint, weeks before Australia leads negotiations at the COP31 climate summit.

Associate Professor Aditya Vyas, a public health physician, co-author of the 2026 MJA–Lancet Countdown report, board member of Doctors for the Environment Australia and consultant to the World Health Organization on climate resilience, said: 

“Climate change harms human health. The health system, especially GP clinics and emergency departments, is the first line of defence against pandemics and environmental disasters.  As a doctor, I worry about the health of my patients, my family, and the next generation.

Climate change also magnifies health and social inequities. I work in Western Sydney, which has some of Australia’s highest birth rates – and also some of the worst environmental and social inequities. Our heatwaves are more severe (10 degrees hotter) than the affluent east. We have less than 20% tree canopy and an urban heat island effect.

The next generation being born into this world will experience worsening health impacts from climate change. This report is a wake-up call for all of us – including our political leaders – to take action right now.”

Climate Councillor Andrew Watkins, Monash Adjunct Professor and lead author of Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment, said:

" Last summer many Aussie towns smashed through heat records, including Port Augusta becoming the southernmost place on earth to record 50C.  This summer we'll almost certainly see more extremes, as climate pollution plus El Niño load the dice for dangerous heat. This report explains how climate pollution is harming our kids. Every expanded coal and gas project adds to the damage and our leaders must stop approving them. For our kids sake."

Anjali Sharma, who took the federal Environment Minister to court as a teenager over a coal mine expansion and now leads the Climate Duty of Care campaign, said: 

“Parliament had the chance to make decision-makers consider the health and wellbeing of children before they approve projects like coal mines, and it didn’t pass. Today’s report calls that a lost opportunity. Now two UN experts are asking the same question I asked in court. Every government in this country owes a duty of care to the young people who will live with these decisions, and it’s time they put our lives ahead of fossil fuel profits.”

Nic Seton, CEO of Parents for Climate, which represents parents across Australia, said:

“Children are vulnerable to heat, and they’re now going through two-thirds more heatwave days than they did a generation ago. Meanwhile, today’s report finds Australia is effectively still subsidising fossil fuels, with a net carbon price of minus $27.80 a tonne. Families are paying for climate damage twice: once through the heat, fires and floods, and again through their taxes. It’s time coal and gas corporations paid their fair share, and it’s time the government stopped approving projects that make our children’s future more dangerous.”

Grace Vegesana, National Director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, whose volunteers are among the young people behind the complaint, said: 

“This generation is over waiting for climate justice. If our politicians will not lead, we will force them to follow us. We’re growing up with more heatwaves, more disasters and more decisions that make it worse. Climate change is here and now, and our generation will bear witness to every decision about every coal and gas project that is made in places like Parliament House. The Albanese Government should sit down with Generation Justice, stop approving new coal and gas projects and make coal and gas corporations pay their fair share for the damage they’re causing.”

Georgia Monaghan, co-founder of ECOMIND, a youth climate mental health and wellbeing charity, and a climate and nature lawyer, said: 

“Young people should not have to take their government to the United Nations to have their future taken seriously. The evidence is clear: climate distress is fuelled not only by the climate crisis itself, but by the failure of governments to act. Watching your future become less secure while those with the power to protect it fail to act can leave young people feeling betrayed and powerless. We cannot ask young people to be hopeful about a future we are failing to protect. Protecting the mental health of future generations means protecting their human rights, taking their voices seriously and acting on the evidence.”

Media contact: Sean Kennedy, Senior Media Advisor, Climate Media Centre, 0447 121 378, [email protected]

 

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BACKGROUND

●      The 2026 MJA–Lancet Countdown report on health and climate change is the eighth annual report, produced by 41 experts from 18 institutions and published in the Medical Journal of Australia (doi.org/10.5694/mja2.70315).

●      Key findings: infants in Australia experienced an average of 4.6 heatwave days a year in 2016–2025, a 66% increase on the 1986–2005 baseline; 65% of heatwave days in Australia across 2021–2025 were attributable to climate change; 49% of 16,230 young people aged 14 to 19 surveyed were worried that climate change threatens people and the planet, and 13.5% said their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily life; weather-related disasters displaced 32,177 people in Australia in 2024, including 25,000 due to flooding in Queensland; and Australia’s net carbon price in 2024 was minus AU$27.80 per tonne of CO2, which the authors describe as a substantial ongoing net fossil fuel subsidy.

●      The report notes the Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2025, which sought to require decision-makers to consider the health and wellbeing of children in Australia, did not pass into law.

●      The UN allegation letter was issued jointly by Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, and Astrid Puentes Riaño, UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Both are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council.

●      The Rapporteurs have asked the Australian Government to explain its lack of plans to transition away from coal and gas, whether it will strengthen its 2035 climate target in line with limiting warming to 1.5°C, and how its coal and gas approvals assess impacts on children, First Nations peoples and communities overseas. 

  • The Australian Government has now responded, outlining its existing climate policies but failing to explain how continued coal and gas approvals are consistent with protecting young people from worsening climate disasters. The government did not commit to stopping coal and gas approvals, ending fossil fuel subsidies or strengthening its 2035 climate target. 

●      Generation Justice is a group of nine young Australians who lodged a human rights complaint with the UN Special Rapporteur on climate change in April 2025, represented byEnvironmental Justice Australia (generationjustice.org.au).

●      COP31 will be held in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026, with Australia as President of Negotiations (DCCEEW).

●      More than 1.4 million Australian children and young people experience a disaster or extreme weather event in an average year (Deloitte Access Economics for UNICEF Australia, 2024).

Further information:


Contact details:

Sean Kennedy, Senior Media Advisor, Climate Media Centre, 0447 121 378, [email protected]