Looking Back—Australia’s Sustainable Development and Climate Change Policy Agendas

In November 2022, a climate change performance index report released at the COP27 United Nations conference in Egypt, ranked Australia 55th on a list of 63 countries and country groupings in addressing the climate crisis. Australia is a leading development partner in the Pacific region; a region economically, environmentally, socially, and culturally impacted by climate change and global warming in the form of (e.g.,) rapid sea level rises, alarming shifts in marine ecosystems, and extreme weather events. How did Australia, a high-income country situated in the Pacific, become a nation that trails other developed countries in addressing climate change? Why has there been a lack of urgency for uptake of sustainable development policy and planning? A new Federal Government, elected in May 2022, has indicated willingness to meaningfully progress Australia’s interconnected climate change, wellbeing, and sustainability policy agendas, in which futures public health policy is inextricably linked. This change in government provides an important moment to review Australia’s sustainable-development climate change policy landscape over a 35-year period. By examining this landscape through a health lens, this paper can provide one of many critical perspectives tracing Australia’s slippage to the bottom of the global climate rankings today.