How the APS is involved - environmental advocacy

The APS has contributed numerous submissions to Government and other inquiries on environmental and climate change related issues. 

The APS is a founding member of the Climate and Health Alliance which is a coalition of health care stakeholders who wish to see the threat to human health from climate change and ecological degradation addressed through prompt policy action.

Through the activities of the Climate and Health Alliance, together with our own APS submissions, we:

• Provide accurate, consistent, and persuasive information about climate change and its impact on mental health.
• Advocate for strong emissions reductions to reduce the current and future physical and mental health impacts associated with increasing global temperature, sea level rise, and food and water insecurity.
• Advocate for public policy that promotes mental health, posttraumatic growth, and resilience in the face of climate change.
• Encourage improvements in the environmental footprint of the APS and our members through: ethical, environmentally sustainable procurement practices; reducing energy and water use; reducing waste; and using clean renewable energy, and divesting from institutions that invest in fossil fuel companies.
• Inform members, policy makers and the community about the opportunities for reducing risks, reducing costs and improving health through reducing carbon emissions.
• Support the Framework for a National Strategy on Climate, Health and Well-being for Australia which provides a detailed roadmap to assist Australia in meeting its obligations to health under the Paris Agreement.
• Provide psychologists and other health professionals with resources for communicating about the health impacts of climate change and advocating for good climate policy to protect health.
• Advocate for the expansion of environmental psychology courses in Australian universities.
• Encourage the implementation of policies and strategies that strengthen the ability of the health care sector to reduce its contribution to, as well as effectively adapt to, climate change.
• Encourage psychological research across a broad range of interests, including the physical and mental health impacts of climate change, developmental impacts across the lifespan, psychological adaptation to climate change, preparing for, adapting and responding to extreme weather events, the influence of attitude toward climate change on psychological coping, the health benefits of prevention and mitigation and many more.
• Advocate for increased investment in research about climate change risk mitigation, and adaptation assessed by those with demonstrated expertise in climate change and health.
• Advocate for the rapid transition from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy that is urgently needed to achieve a zero emissions economy in line with Australia’s Paris commitment.
• Advocate for increased resourcing for health-care services, particularly those that attend to psychological trauma and other mental health and wellbeing effects of unmitigated climate change.