The Coda community have identified the Climate Emergency as the most urgent threat to global health. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that the climate crisis will become catastrophic if we don't take action immediately.
This episode of CodaZero Earth focuses on action stage one – 'identify' and lays the foundations for stage two - 'examine' (as set out in our Five Stage action process). We outline the urgency of the challenges that global healthcare faces and how as health professionals, we must sound the alarm for both our patients and for our children.
Conversation one dives into how gas is often positioned as a “safer transition fuel” when in fact it is completely unnecessary and a potential super-pollutant. The panel critically assesses the interrelationship of power, wealth and influence in government and how to overcome the sceptics in the fight for truth about the grave threat the #climateEmergency poses to health.
Then, we move on to how the climate crisis is exacerbating existing Injustice and Inequity, disproportionately impacting those patients without access to universal health care. Additionally our younger population and our children are the most likely to be affected by the climate emergency,however, they have limited power of persuasion in the crucial decisions that we make today, which will impact on their tomorrow.
Conversation three defines what sustainable healthcare is. Health care accounts for 5-7% of the global carbon emissions. The healthcare community and supporting industries must commit to Corporate Social Responsibility goals and demand products, packaging and materials which have a minimal impact on the environment. We need to consider the super-cycle of high turnover, disposable waste and to challenge ourselves to consider alternatives such as reusable gowns. The overall target must be NetZero by 2050!
Finally, we examine how the pandemic response has shown us the way forward for climate action. The first step of managing the pandemic was to stop the problem growing, similarly, the first step to combat the climate emergency is to stop the burning of fossil fuels. Then, we must build the capacity of our systems to adapt to the crisis, just as we built health capacity and finally we must search for the ‘climate vaccine’ which means drawing CO2 out of our atmosphere.
Our premise is first do no harm but “time is planet” and we need to get moving.
For more head to: codachange.org/podcasts