Health professionals are sounding the alarm as increased extreme weather events have been linked to worsening mental and physical health impacts.
Leading doctors will descend on Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday to warn politicians of a mental health crisis being driven by worsening climate change.
“Our changing climate is making both our bodies and minds sicker,” GP and Doctors for the Environment Australia executive director Kate Wylie said.
“Conditions like asthma and heart disease - both exacerbated by rising temperatures and pollution - are closely tied to anxiety and depression.”
Dr Wylie said climate change also caused devastating complications during pregnancy, including pregnancy loss, premature births and low birth weight.
"The rates of children who are born prematurely or with low birth weight have higher rates of mental disorders as well as those of the developing brain and nervous system," she said.
The organisation released a report in May outlining the mental health consequences of climate change.
Extreme heat, bushfires, storms, floods and drought were found to directly cause psychological distress, interpersonal violence, or non-physical relationship conflict.
For children, the experience of having a parent's life threatened during an extreme weather event can lead to PTSD, even if the child was not under direct threat, the report found.
Health professionals from the group have felt compelled to warn MPs about mental health dangers due to the extreme weather since the report's release, including heat records being broken in October, drought in regional Victoria, and algal bloom in South Australia.
Child and adolescent psychiatrist Cybele Dey, who will join Dr Wylie in Canberra, said hotter days were also linked with increased suicides, domestic violence and mental health emergencies.
“In Australia, even mild heat has been shown to increase suicidal distress among young people, with more presenting to emergency departments the hotter it becomes,” Dr Dey said.
Suicide was already the leading cause of death for 15 to 44-year-olds, stressing the need to act on reducing heat exposure, Dr Dey said.
“People in rural and remote areas, especially farmers, are particularly vulnerable as they face both more extreme weather and limited access to care," she said.
The group's warning comes as Labor will introduce a major overhaul of environmental laws this week.
The bill has come under fire, with the coalition arguing it doesn't go far enough to cut red tape to approve energy and housing projects, while the Greens expressed it won't protect the climate and forests.
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