Enhancing ambition on climate policy through co-design
Health has often been a peripheral consideration in the development of climate policies despite climate measures having a material impact on health outcomes. In today’s post, VicHealth Research Impact Grant recipients Annabelle Workman and Kathryn Bowen, both of the Melbourne Climate Futures at the University of Melbourne, share their findings on addressing barriers and meeting needs through the co-design of ‘healthier’ climate policy development.
You can access the toolkit here: healthier climate policies toolkit.
Embedding health in climate policy
Australia’s Minister for Health, Mark Butler, has recognised that ‘good climate policy is good public health policy’. This simple fact is important but its significance is underrated. Research shows that climate measures, whether they be aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) or preparing communities to manage a changing climate (adaptation), can have both positive and negative health consequences. Most of the time, these measures are developed by agencies and departments that do not have health expertise.
In Australia, research that directly involves policymakers to understand how they develop climate policy - and consider health outcomes in the process - has been limited. We set about addressing this knowledge gap, undertaking research with national - and most recently, subnational - policymakers to understand how they develop climate policies and whether they consider health outcomes during the process.
From humble climate policy beginnings
In 2015, the Australian Government was preparing its national climate action pledge, known at the time as an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), for submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ahead of international climate negotiations in Paris. Our earlier research involving national policymakers across federal departments confirmed that health was a peripheral and comparatively low priority issue during climate policy development.
Analysis of the INDC that the Australian Government submitted in 2015 concluded that Australia’s pledge represented a comparatively modest contribution to international climate action, particularly given Australia’s substantially high per capita emissions. We concluded in 2018 that there were opportunities to reframe the dominant narrative of climate action as a burdensome, costly exercise to providing Australians with social, economic, and environmental opportunities that would bring multiple health and other benefits.
Health co-benefits: maximising health outcomes through thoughtful policy development
The concept we felt best placed to achieve this reframing was the ‘co-benefits’ concept. Co-benefits are the secondary benefits that are achieved from a policy or measure with an alternative primary objective – in the case of Australian climate policy, this has historically been emissions reduction, although health co-benefits can also be achieved through carefully designed climate adaptation measures. Health co-benefits can be achieved across sectors – such as transport, food systems, the built environment, and energy – when potential health outcomes resulting from a measure are proactively considered and maximised.
Policymakers manage many competing time pressures and require access to easy-to-understand, fit-for-purpose information. We set about creating an evidence-based, peer-reviewed decision support tool to help policymakers across sectors understand how thinking about health during climate policy development could lead to better health outcomes for Australians.
Co-designing climate policy development and health
While national climate policy was a politically toxic issue in Australia throughout much of the first two decades of the 21st Century, subnational (state and local) governments had been progressing climate action with local communities. With generous VicHealth funding, in 2024 we recruited a cohort of state and local government representatives from across departments, agencies and units to explore how health was being considered and included in climate policies. From our interviews, we were able to understand current knowledge, attitudes and practices, as well as enablers, barriers and needs.
Importantly, we adopted a co-design process including validation and co-design workshops to facilitate the co-design of additional tools and resources to address identified needs. This involved re-engaging the cohort to validate what we had learnt through interviews, and to then better explore and understand essential features and functionalities of the tools prior to their initial development. This ensured accessibility and fit-for-purpose products.
Through this project, we have co-designed five tools, which comprise the first suite of tools for our healthier climate policies toolkit. These tools represent a fundamental starting point for policymakers across local councils and state departments who are eager to design ‘healthier’ climate policies and to communicate the need for cross-sectoral collaboration to colleagues in other departments, agencies and units.
Going forward, we will look to expand the toolkit based on interview and workshop feedback, pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of the toolkit to support ‘healthier’ climate policy and program development, and support the uptake of the toolkit in jurisdictions beyond Victoria. With successive climate threats regularly impacting the health of Victorians, there has never been a more crucial time to ensure that climate policies and programs consider health outcomes during development and implementation.
Posted by Dr Susan Maury, moderator.