OPINION: Despite clear recognition that climate change is accelerating and fossil fuels must be urgently phased out, Australia, the United States of America, and Qatar remain the top nations exporting gas as liquified natural gas.

In fact, both the USA and Australia are busily implementing extensive plans for new oil and gas expansion to further boost production and export.

As of December 2022, Australia had 49 oil and gas development projects in the pipeline. The 2023 forward estimates for fossil fuel subsidies is $57 billion, to kick start new coal seam gas and shale gas developments in several Australian states and the Northern Territory.

These developments are being fast-tracked despite extensive peer-reviewed research in the US linking significant health losses to those near sprawling fracking wells and infrastructure. The US has witnessed massive oil and gas development, with approximately 17.6 million people living near at least one of the 900,000 active oil and gas wells.

In 2013, The Guardian described the life of Veronica in Texas, in the US, who suddenly found gas wells being drilled 90 metres from her garden. She then suffered nosebleeds, nausea and headaches and her home lost nearly a quarter of its value.

A report published under the auspices of Sydney University, The risks of oil and gas development for human health and wellbeing: A synthesis of evidence and implications for Australia, cited over 300 scientific and medical studies, including many new publications in 2022 and 2023.

The findings are stark – most studies identified increases in numerous diseases among those living near wells and many harms to air, water, land and the climate.

For example, published research has consistently documented poorer birth outcomes from pregnancies spent near gas developments; including higher frequencies of low birth weight, pre-term delivery, spontaneous abortions, birth defects and acute lymphoblastic anaemia (cancer of the blood) in early childhood.

One recent US study estimated that air pollutants from oil and gas operations caused 410,000 asthma attacks, including 2,200 new cases, 530 emergency department visits, 1,500 additional respiratory hospitalisations, 270 additional heart attacks, and 7,500 premature deaths. The calculated financial cost of these losses was US$77 billion in 2016 alone.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health released a series of reports in August 2023 which found a 5-to-7-fold greater risk of developing lymphoma (a cancer of the blood) and increased asthma attacks among children living within 1,600 metres of a well.

Is this research important for Australia to consider in our decision making?

We argue, definitely yes. Health harms have been found repeatedly in studies across many different oil and gas basins, with varying geographies, companies, fracking processes, policy and regulatory regimes and environmental chemistries in the shale and coal seams from which wastewater is produced.

We reject the suggestion that Australia is somehow exempt from these harms.

Only a few health studies have been done in Australia, despite a decade of coal seam gas drilling and production in Queensland. Consistent with many US studies, two in Queensland found increases in hospitalisations for heart and respiratory disease and childhood blood cancers.

These rises coincided with increased emissions of air pollutants. These toxic pollutants include particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and formaldehyde.

US research has also identified many harmful chemicals which are released into the air and are present in huge volumes of wastewater. Among these are chemicals capable of causing cancer, birth defects, heart and lung disease and damage to the developing brain and nerves among exposed people.

The US Environmental Protection Agency makes frequent recommendations but these are often overruled by state governments. Recently, the government allowed the fracking industry to freely use 28 toxic chemicals which are otherwise regulated by federal law. These chemicals are now being found in drinking water supplies there. There is also a potential for these chemicals to threaten the farming industry with possible contamination of crops or cattle.

Very concerning for Australia, especially as we face longer and hotter droughts, is the huge volumes of freshwater required for gas production risking competition with food production.

Finally, the major contribution of oil and gas production to climate change is now very clear, as research has shattered the myth of gas being ‘better than coal’.

As Northern Territorians already know, climate change is now a health emergency. Australia is one of the world’s wealthiest nations with one of the largest per capita global footprints and greenhouse gas emissions. We must therefore focus all our efforts on accelerating smart and clean renewable energies that will benefit our industries and the health and wellbeing of Australians and the whole world.

It is clear that this is a major public health issue in both Australia and the US, yet it is ignored by our governments in their continued quest for export income from fossil fuels.

We argue that the community should not have to suffer and pay for the predictable health, water and climate harms of an expanding gas industry.

We urge readers to join the call to the NT and other governments to take notice of this evidence and withdraw support for industries that are likely to harm future generations of Australians.

We are in a climate crisis, and we know the coming months will subject us to record-breaking dangerous heat and drought as this super El Nino sets in. We urge the NT and all Australian governments to accept their duty of care, reject fossil fuel developments, and focus directly on clean innovations to secure a safe and liveable future for all generations.

David Shearman is an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Adelaide. He has previously held positions at Edinburgh and Yale universities and hospitals. Prof Shearman is also the author of several books relating to climate change, and was a contributor to two working groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on human health, and on Australasian biodiversity issues. For more information on his career you can visit his website.

Melissa Haswell is a professor of health, safety and environment at the Queensland University of Technology, and also a professor of practice in environmental wellbeing in the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services), and an honorary professor (School of Geosciences) at the University of Sydney.