b111 Professor Peter Doherty speaks on connection between climate change and pandemics at the Nobel Prize Summit, Our Planet, Our Future | Doherty Website

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06 May 2021

Professor Peter Doherty speaks on connection between climate change and pandemics at the Nobel Prize Summit, Our Planet, Our Future

Action on climate change won’t come as easily as pandemic responses according to Laureate Professor Peter Doherty, Patron and namesake of the Doherty Institute.

Speaking last week at the first Nobel Prize Summit, Our Planet, Our Future, Professor Doherty was part of a panel, A Pandemic Guide to Solving Problems with Science, where he contrasted Australia’s responses to COVID-19 with the political inertia in the face of our other urgent crises – climate change.

“Climate change is an enormous issue,” he said. “While in Australia we’ve been able to activate a hugely successful and coordinated response to COVID-19, we haven’t been able to do that with the question of climate change.”

Professor Doherty said the implications of a warming planet have significant consequences on the increased risk of pathogens and further spread of infectious diseases.

“Advanced countries handle this pretty well. It becomes catastrophic, however, in the poorer countries. And of course, with all this – whether COVID-19 or climate change – it’s always the poor of the planet who are the most severely affected.”

These compounding issues, Professor Doherty pointed out, are treated differently within Australia’s legislative political processes, reflecting what he describes as the “divided mind” of these policy responses.

“The most difficult things for human beings to do, once they’ve gained what they consider an advantage, is to actually give up on that or even to contemplate changing the way they do it. Action on climate change, for this reason, will not come as easily as pandemic responses.”

Also speaking on the panel were fellow Laureates Jennifer Doudna, Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, and Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health in the US.

Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden, Fauci discussed issues of pandemic preparedness in the US, citing short comings in public health messaging and political structures as contributing to the huge number of cases in the US to date.

Jennifer Doudna focussed on the increased testing capabilities needed to respond to more frequent pandemics, citing her co-development of CRISPR-Cas9, and its significance as a cutting-edge diagnostic tool for future viruses.

Watch the full panel discussion here.

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