6.1 The healthcare sector and climate change

The healthcare industry is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, the fundamental cause of global climate change. The total greenhouse gas emissions from the healthcare sector would amount to the fifth-largest emission source on the planet if it were considered as a country, according to a report by Health Care Without Harm in collaboration with Arup (Karliner et al., 2020). The pharmaceutical sector is considered more emission-intensive than the automotive industry (Weisz et al., 2020). Internationally, the average share of the healthcare sector in carbon emissions (the predominant greenhouse gas CO2) exceeds 5 per cent (Weisz et al., 2020). It is 7 per cent in Australia (Malik et al., 2018) and Austria (Weisz et al., 2020) and 8 to 10 per cent in the US (Ebi & Hess, 2024).

The vast majority of emissions come from the healthcare supply chain: 82 per cent in the US (Eckelman et al., 2020). There is a need to examine the tools and products used throughout the value chain, from material acquisition to use and disposal. One study found that a daily intake of 650 milligrams of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient per HIV patient is associated with annual CO2 emissions of 2.7 megatons globally (Unitaid, 2023).

Tools and products used every day in healthcare services are also vulnerable to climate-related disruptions in the manufacturing industry and supply chain. For instance, the vital antimalarial drug artemisinin, extracted from the plant Artemisia annua, in is short supply due to climate impacts on plant growth and flood disruptions in manufacturing in India, a major supplier worldwide. The good news is that there are technical solutions available to ensure a stable supply of the medicine while simultaneously reducing CO2 emissions without imposing additional costs (Unitaid, 2023).