#AirPollution from coal-fired power stations is killing approximately 800 people in Australia every year. It's the biggest public health crisis you've never heard of. Email your Environment Minister and demand #CleanAirNow.

Air pollution from Australia’s ageing and increasingly unreliable coal-burning power stations is responsible for 800 premature deaths, 14,000 asthma symptoms among children and 850 cases of low birth weight in newborns each year. 

Any death from dirty coal-burning power stations is one death too many.

Email your Environment Minister.

#AirPollution from coal-fired power stations can travel hundreds of kilometres from it's emitting source. It isn't just people who live in coal-impacted communities who are at risk of getting sick. Demand #CleanAirNow.

"This vital information needs to get to the decision makers in our state and federal governments whose responsibility it is to enable, not disable, the healthy development of our children."

– Professor Fiona Stanley AC FAA

Low birth weight

Long-term exposure to PM2.5 pollution during pregnancy has been linked to low birth weight. Babies born with low birthweight are at increased risk of health conditions including cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and premature mortality.

Develop a plan to ensure coal in completely phased out and replaced with renewable energy in the shortest possible time, with regional plans to prepare communities for economic adjustment.

Conduct independent health-risk assessments for major sources of air pollution to ensure air pollution policy reflects the best available public health evidence.

Significantly tighten emission limits in existing power stations equivalent to the lower atmospheric emission limit described by the European Industrial Emission Directive best available technique conclusions, until their closure.

Ensure any load-based licensing or pollution fee schemes reflect the damage to human health and costs to the healthcare system caused by air pollution, to ensure these costs are no longer externalised by electricity generators.

Adopt the advice of peak health organisations on the appropriate science-based values for ambient air quality standards for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone.

Ratify and implement the Minamata convention, the International treaty on mercury emission reduction.

Call: 1800 815 151

Authorised by Kate Smolski, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Sydney.

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