Establishing the first-ever estimate of health care’s global climate footprint, the new report Health care’s climate footprint finds health care’s footprint is equivalent to 4.4% of global net emissions (2 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent).
To put this in perspective, global health care emissions are equivalent to the annual greenhouse gases produced by 514 coal-fired power plants.
Hospitals, health systems and their supply chains in the United States, China, and collectively the countries of the European Union, comprise more than half of health care’s worldwide emissions. And while vastly differing in scale, every nation’s health sector directly and indirectly releases greenhouse gases as it delivers care.
Health care's climate footprint makes the case for a transformation of the health care sector that aligns it with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees celsius. Being released simultaneously at events around the world, the report outlines immediate actions that stakeholders from across the health sector can take, concluding that health promotion, disease prevention, universal health coverage, and the global climate goal of net zero emissions must become intertwined.
"Places of healing should be leading the way, not contributing to the burden of disease,” says Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization.
“The health sector must become climate-smart,” says Gary Cohen, founder of Health Care Without Harm. “Both climate justice and health equity depend on it.”
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