RIGG Symposium – Climate Change and Future Child Health

The UWA Research Income Growth Grant (RIGG) Symposium on Climate Change and Future Child Health will examine the effects of climate change, environmental degradation and population dynamics on the health of future children. Given that children are estimated to bear 80-90% of the burden of ill-health caused by climate change, this issue is now one of the greatest problems facing the future of our species on the planet.

This Symposium will examine:

• The future climate and environment impacts most likely to affect children
• The likely consequences for their health
• The striking paucity of research which examines the scale of these effects over the next 10 to 50 years
• Why there’s an urgent need for this research
• How this research can be used to help ensure the health children in the future

This event is free and open to all researchers, scientists, clinicians, students, research funders and health providers interested in climate change and future child health. Registrations are essential – please email Prof Peter Le Souëf by COB Wednesday 27 November 2019 to secure your place.

Program:

0900-1030: Climate change and an increasingly hostile environment

0900: Brief welcome address – Carmen Lawrence

0900-0915: Climate change, geospatial mapping and human ecology – Corey Bradshaw

0915-0930: Climate change and the environment – global and local – Jatin Kala

0930-0945: Climate change and air quality – current and future – Alex Larcombe

0945-1010: Geospatial analyses of future infectious diseases in children – Peter Gething

1000-1030: Forum discussion – climate change and the environment

1030-1100: Coffee break

1100-1230: Future child health: why climate change is important

1100-1115: Future child health in low-income countries – Quique Bassat

1115-1130: Climate change and eco-anxieties in young people – Petra Tscharkert

1130-1145: The Lancet Commission and global child health – Peter Sly

1145-1200: Future child health in Australia and Western Australia – Peter Le Souëf

1200-1230: Forum discussion – climate change and future child health

1230-1300: Light lunch

Speakers (expertise in brackets):

Prof Corey Bradshaw – ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage; Global Ecology, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University (global ecology, statistical modelling)

Dr Jatin Kala – ARCH Discovery Early Career Research Award fellow, IPCC Coordinating Lead Author (CLA), Murdoch University (climate change and the environment)

Dr Alex Larcombe – Telethon Kids Institute (health effects of air pollution)

Prof Quique Bassat – University of Barcelona, Spain; Health Research Centre, Manhiça, Mozambique (child health in developing countries)

Prof Peter Gething – Telethon Kids Institute (geospatial mapping of infectious diseases)

Prof Petra Tschakert – Faculty of Science, UWA School of Agriculutre and Environment, CLA of IPPC Chapter 5, Special Report on 1.5C Global Warming (human-environment interactions)

Prof Peter Sly – Director, Children’s Health and Environment Program; Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Children’s Health & Environment, University of Queensland (climate change & child health, respiratory health in children)

Prof Peter Le Souëf – School of Medicine, UWA (respiratory and global child health)