What doctors and medical students can do to help combat climate change
Sarah Walpole discusses what the medical community can do and also interviews the right honourable Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for the UK’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Climate change is, and will increasingly be, the cause of major and widespread health problems. These include trauma following natural disasters, malnutrition where crop yields are reduced, and infection due to the spread of diseases and disease vectors.
Scientists have found that there is a “tipping point” at which major destabilisation will occur, with catastrophic effects, such as major natural disasters. To avoid reaching the tipping point and prevent the major health consequences, global emissions must peak and begin to fall by 2015 (1) which is no easy target.
Providing an adequate response is a major challenge, and the United Nations summit charged with addressing this challenge will be opened in Bali [this month]. World leaders will travel to Bali where they will discuss a post-Kyoto treaty that will take effect from 2009.
Hilary Benn spent four years as the UK’s Secretary of State for International Development, before starting his current job as the Secretary of State for the UK’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in June of this year. I met with Hilary Benn to learn about his hopes and expectations for the UN summit on Climate Change, and discuss where health comes into it.
Hilary Benn said, “as citizens we have to acknowledge that we all have a role to play”, so what, I asked, is the role of doctors in the fight against climate change? Hilary Benn was quick to point out, “there are colleagues of [ours] living in other parts of the world who are treating patients experiencing the consequences of climate change.” He stressed that we should combat climate change in solidarity with doctors around the world, to protect patients suffering ill health as a result of climate change, and as part of our duty to protect health.
The most catastrophic effects of climate change, including flooding, drought and hurricanes, will indeed occur in developing countries, but developed countries will also suffer consequences. Although Hilary Benn initially focused on the effects climate change has on poorer nations, he later mentioned the excessive flooding that has been seen in the UK. Flooding in Britain this summer displaced thousands of people from their homes and is thought to have claimed four lives. (2)
Deaths related to climate change occurring in a country where the healthcare system is well-developed alerts us to the severity of the threat that climate change poses, particularly where health systems are less developed and not prepared to cope with climatic change. Climate change does not adhere to national boundaries, and protecting patients around the world from the effects of climate change is the duty of doctors in both developed and developing countries. Hilary Benn labelled climate change “the ultimate interdependent challenge.” So doctors and medical students throughout the world should be doing their bit.
According to Hilary Benn, once we have acknowledged the challenge, we must “recognise that doing something about it will require a contribution from each of us as individuals, from the communities that we live in, from governments and internationally”. Every citizen (and every doctor) should attempt to reduce their own environmental impact.
Hilary Benn stated that individual change will be brought about through “education and information: people understanding how the choices that they make will affect health”. If individuals understand the impact of their actions on themselves and on others, they are more likely to make healthy choices. Doctors can educate individuals about the health benefits, both to themselves and to others, of living a lower carbon lifestyle. National and local health services often run in education campaigns and doctors are usually respected in their communities, giving them clout both through personal contacts and through institutional structures.
Hilary Benn explained that the Carbon Calculator (3) on the UK government’s website can empower people who want to make these healthier choices to take action. It is a tool for calculating your current energy usage in the home, for transport and for appliances, and learning where improvements could be made. Doctors play a key role in education and tools such as this can “encourage people to see this as something that can be done, as well as being something that has to be done.”
Doctors form an influential group in many societies. As such they can call on governments to respond effectively and make tackling climate change something that not only can be done, but is done. Through collective advocacy, health professionals can exert strong pressure on governments to tighten legislation and support environmental developments. An example of this is the Climate and Health Council which started in London in 2006. Institutions and individuals are invited to sign the Climate and Health Council’s declaration, calling individual health professionals, healthcare institutions and governments to act within their sphere of influence to reduce and mitigate the effects climate change. The Climate and Health Council aims to expand to form national and international networks. Health professionals can create a strong voice for health and exert political pressure at important events, such as the UN summit in Bali.
Bali is an imminent platform for international debate and commitment to action on climate change. Hilary Benn told me that the UK government is “showing leadership,” with the UK being “the first country in the world to put our commitment to reduce emissions by at least 60% on the statute book.” The commitment to a 60% reduction, part of the recent Climate Change Bill, is an important step, but the Kyoto treaty has shown that promises do not always mean results. Those governments who signed the Kyoto protocol committed to reduce emissions by 5.2% on average from 1990 levels by 2012, (4) yet, despite this becoming law in February 2005, many countries are not on track to meet this target.
The United Nations recognises that Kyoto left much “unfinished business”, and further negotiations are required. (5) A major problem was that the United States did not ratify this treaty, and the countries that did ratify the treaty made up little more than half of global carbon emissions in 1990. (6) In Bali stronger commitments must be made, and it is crucial that more countries are onboard. Hilary Benn conceded that, given that each country comes with their own agenda, reaching an agreement by the time of the UN meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 is “a big hope to have.”
In Bali, bold promises are required, and these promises must be supported with bold actions. For governments to do what is required, they must feel that they have public support. Hilary Benn feels that “opinion is moving”, and encouraged people to “talk about it, write articles, lobby [and] campaign” about climate change to reflect this to their government. Medical students can play a part in raising awareness of the links between climate and health and building the environmental movement, for example by running a “Healthy Planet” campaign at university and signing the Climate and Health Council declaration. As future doctors, with a mandate to protect health, we must join others in making bold demands as we approach the start of the next UN summit on Climate Change. (6)
Sarah Walpole
Fourth Year Medical student
Leeds Medical School
Worsley Building
Clarendon Way
Leeds
LS2 9NL
argotomunky@yahoo.co.uk
(1) http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/5835.html
(2)http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6239828.stm
(3)http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/actonco2/DG_067197
(4)http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/policies/kyoto.shtml
(5)http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php
(6)http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/policies/kyoto.shtml
Bookmark on delicious | Digg