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Background: This paper considers energy as a social and commercial determinant of health. Stable access to clean and sustainable energy is integral for human wellbeing yet public health rarely considers its importance. Methods: Using NVivo qualitative analysis software we analysed all Australian federal, state and territory strategic energy policies covering varying periods between 2016-2030. We defined strategic policy as including the goals, objectives and strategies of the department regarding a specific area of policy responsibility. This criterion excluded documents such as operational guidelines. 36 energy-related policies were analyzed. Results: While the nature of energy supply is crucial to determining the impact of human and environmental health, our analysis showed that health and wellbeing are only rarely considered in policy. We developed a conceptual framework to guide our work linking energy policy with health. Australia's continued reliance on fossil fuels evident in the policies poses health risks, especially as climate change threatens physical and mental health. Yet health considerations were mainly absent from the policies. However, some jurisdictions (South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory [ACT]) had policies encouraging a fast move to renewables. Energy pricing was a key focus in each jurisdiction and had become highly politicalized in the past decade. Little attention was paid to equity considerations in the policies. Conclusion: Energy policy would be more health promoting if public health perspectives were considered during its development. On the basis of our policy analysis and literature review we conclude with recommendations for healthy energy policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Murray–Darling Basin covers parts of four States of Australia and the whole of the Australian Capital Territory. As at 2002, its water management was well regarded internationally. Basin flows are low and variable. The most reliable streams show variations of about 12:1 between maximum and minimum annual natural flows. The longest tributary, the Darling, has a ratio of infinity. It was recognized in the 1980s that extractions from the system, largely for irrigation, had to be constrained. That led to the introduction of the "Murray‐Darling Basin Cap" which limited extractions and recognized the probability of average inflows declining, which was already being predicted by climate change modelling. The "millennium drought" of 2000–2009 was very severe and led to fears that the drop in inflows was happening faster than modelling was predicting. In 2007, the National Government, on the eve of an election, declared that the Basin had been mismanaged for a century by the States and legislated to transfer management powers from the States to the Commonwealth. That transfer has been pursued since then by National Governments of both major parties. Government claims to have "taken the politics out of Basin management and returned to the science." The evidence is that the exact opposite has occurred. The paper traces the history of water management in the Basin. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's rivers are among the most variable in the world and this has been a major challenge in catchments such as the Murray-Darling Basin where management has focused on increasing agricultural production while reducing risks from fluctuating water availability. Pressure for development and over-optimistic assessments of available water have resulted in over-allocation and increasing ecological decline, which has been severely exacerbated by record-breaking drought. In recent years, governments have agreed to radical policies such as the National Water Initiative 2004 and allocated substantial funds in response. Implementation is in gridlock, however, as the socio-economic implications have become clearer. Most debate is focused on the draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan due for release in mid-2010 before finalization in 2011. It will be the first Basin-wide plan and is intended to deal with inequities across borders and risks such as climate change and drought. Climate change scenarios for 2030 foresee a range of potential surface water availability outcomes, ranging from a 7% increase to a 37% decrease, yet greater water scarcity is being experienced in the current (2002+) drought with inflows reduced by 70% or more in extreme years. Contradictory policies are hindering the more open adaptation required to manage a drier future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Droughts, changing weather patterns due to climate change, unsustainable state and federal government policies and parochial self interest has brought the major irrigated agricultural region of Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin close to collapse. The present state of the Basin together with the predictions of computer modelling of future climate changes over the next few decades is discussed in relation to the existing attitudes of vested interests at all levels and the various policies now being undertaken by governments in an attempt to address the major problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of regional climate models (RCMs) to localise results from coarse-resolution global climate models has recently attracted more interest in agricultural impact studies. Theoretically, it has advantages over global climate models in terms of realisation of future climate projections. However, there are few studies that have used dynamical downscaling results to assess climate change impacts on Australian cropping systems. In this study, we used post-processing bias-corrected climate data from the NSW/ACT Regional Climate Modelling (NARCliM) project to drive the Agricultural Production Systems SIMulator (APSIM) for modelling and evaluating the response of three major crops (wheat, canola and lupin) to projected climate conditions under various farm management practices in south-eastern Australia. Our results showed that historical crop yields from APSIM simulations forced by RCM output tended to underestimate yields from simulations forced by observations due to large biases in the NARCliM simulations. Therefore, bias correction was used to correct the APSIM outputs before conducting future impact analysis. The bias-corrected results showed that ensemble-mean yields based on 12 RCMs were projected to increase over the study area under the A2 emission scenario. However, the magnitude of yield increase depended on the time periods, crop type and location. Multiple linear regression models showed that the changes of radiation, rainfall and temperature and elevated CO2 concentration could explain 60–78% of crop yield changes. It is interesting to note that residue incorporation and nitrogen application had a large effect on percentage yield increases for wheat due to future climate change, but had limited effects on the response of lupin and canola yields. Our study suggests that sufficient bias-correction method is needed when using NARCliM outputs in crop models. Although uncertainties (e.g. the choice of emission scenarios and RCMs) still exist in our study, the results are of central importance in the development of high-yield adaptive strategies for local farmers and policy makers in south-eastern Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scales of the genus Parthenolecanium have become pests in some grapevine growing regions of Australia but not in the wine region in and around Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Previous work suggests that population size of scales on certain cultivars varied, with one potential reason for observed differences being the number of scales surviving winter. Parthenolecanium persicae (Fabricius, 1776) overwinters as a third‐instar nymph under the bark of grapevines. We investigated whether differences in bark thickness and thermal insulation contributed to survivorship and the extent to which the scales could tolerate cold temperatures. The thickness of bark and the temperature difference across the bark varied among cultivars studied (Shiraz, Chardonnay, Tempranillo, Riesling, Viognier), but these parameters were not correlated among cultivars. Third‐instar scales could survive −15°C in dry conditions but froze and were killed when wet and temperatures were cooled to −10°C. Neither the differences in bark thickness nor scale cold tolerance could explain differences in infestations among cultivars observed previously. Grapevine scale outbreaks in various Australian grape‐growing regions may coincide with changes in climate as a result of increased winter survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isolating the causes of extreme variations or changes in the hydroclimate is difficult due to the complexities of the driving mechanisms, but it is crucial for effective natural resource management. In Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), ocean-atmosphere processes causing hydroclimatic variations occur on time scales from days to centuries, all are important, and none are likely to act in isolation. Instead, interactions between all hydroclimatic drivers, on multiple time scales, are likely to have caused the variations observed in MDB instrumental records. A simplified framework is presented to assist natural resource managers in identifying the potential causes of hydroclimatic anomalies. The framework condenses an event into its fundamental elements, including its spatial and temporal signal and smallscale evolution. The climatic processes that are potentially responsible are then examined to determine possible causes. The framework was applied to a period of prolonged and severe dry conditions occurring in the southern MDB from 1997-2010, providing insights into possible causal mechanisms that are consistent with recent studies. The framework also assists in identifying uncertainties and gaps in our understanding that need to be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MJA-Lancet Countdown on health and climate change was established in 2017, and produced its first Australian national assessment in 2018 and its first annual update in 2019. It examines indicators across five broad domains: climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability; adaptation, planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. In the wake of the unprecedented and catastrophic 2019-20 Australian bushfire season, in this special report we present the 2020 update, with a focus on the relationship between health, climate change and bushfires, highlighting indicators that explore these linkages. In an environment of continuing increases in summer maximum temperatures and heatwave intensity, substantial increases in both fire risk and population exposure to bushfires are having an impact on Australia's health and economy. As a result of the "Black Summer" bushfires, the monthly airborne particulate matter less than 2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5 ) concentrations in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in December 2019 were the highest of any month in any state or territory over the period 2000-2019 at 26.0 μg/m3 and 71.6 μg/m3 respectively, and insured economic losses were $2.2 billion. We also found growing awareness of and engagement with the links between health and climate change, with a 50% increase in scientific publications and a doubling of newspaper articles on the topic in Australia in 2019 compared with 2018. However, despite clear and present need, Australia still lacks a nationwide adaptation plan for health. As Australia recovers from the compounded effects of the bushfires and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the health profession has a pivotal role to play. It is uniquely suited to integrate the response to these short term threats with the longer term public health implications of climate change, and to argue for the economic recovery from COVID-19 to align with and strengthen Australia's commitments under the Paris Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]