The Lancet, January 2018
The carbon footprint of Australian health care
The health effects of climate change are becoming increasingly important, with more frequent direct effects such as heat stress and fires, water inundations, and storms, and indirect effects including malnutrition from crop failures, and altered infectious disease patterns. Health care itself has been shown to contribute to climate change. In particular, hospitals are highly energy intensive, consume large amounts of resources, and produce a large amount of waste.
There are personal, financial, and environmental benefits from reducing our reliance on hospital-based health care and improving availability of public health. For example, personal health benefits arise from more frequent exercise, reduced obesity, the consumption of more plant-based foods, and reduced smoking and alcohol intake. Such personal benefits give rise to environmental co-benefits through reduced car use, fewer methane-producing ruminants,and fewer hospital admissions from chronic ill health.