Recorded 13th February 2025.

A hybrid seminar by Prof Cathriona Russell (School of Religion, Theology and Peace Studies) as part of the Medical and Health Humanities Seminar Series.

Healthcare faces comparable challenges to those of every other sector in society in the context of a changing climate. In relation to ongoing international agreements, healthcare will, for example, have to enact mitigation strategies for net-zero in its contributions to emissions, currently c.4.5% of global GHG emissions.

More significantly however healthcare will need to design strategies for adaptation, aiming at resilience in ongoing provision and effectiveness in securing justice; resilience in the face of more extensive and more frequent temperature and precipitation extremes, sea level rise, changes in land-use and food production; and resilience in social conditions, in housing provision, in providing access to health care, in disease prevention, all while demographies continually shift (age and gender, poverty, and displacement)[1].

The expected continuing increase in intensity and frequency of adverse events will worsen health outcomes and health inequalities, which themselves are drivers of climate change. If healthcare contributes to the ‘good life’ through its impact on health, then a key measure of its effectiveness will be its commitment to building capability e.g. for preventative medicine (A. Sen), and for ‘living with and for each other in just institutions’ (P. Ricoeur).

[1] IPCC, 2023 Summary for Policy Makers, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/

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