The Australian healthcare sector contributes around 7% of Australia’s total emissions and Health service organisations must be supported to deliver sustainable, adaptable, and resilient care health care. Organisations must be equipped to:
- Develop systems to anticipate, recognise and respond to changes in climate-based health demands
- Build resilient systems to plan for adapt to climate threats, and use available resources, while minimising waste
- Reduce the provision of low value care
- Develop a workforce with the capacity to understand and interpret risks to sustainable healthcare, as well as build and apply these systems in the workplace.
Climate and health policy needs to strike a balance between ensuring safety and quality of patient care, harmonisation with existing strategies, and minimising compliance burdens on a system already under pressure. The health sector cannot solve the climate emergency in isolation, and if the sector is to succeed in the aim of net zero emissions from healthcare by 2040, health service providers and health organisations must be fully supported and funded to do so.
ACRRM Climate Advocacy in Action
The College is focused on:
- Lending support to initiatives across the sector, having joined the Healthy Climate Future Campaign and supported both the WONCA Open letter in October 2023
- Expanding work commenced in 2023 around sustainability
- Reviewing its policy position paper, following release of the National Health and Climate Strategy.
Get involved in Climate and Health
Doctors for the Environment Australia are holding their annual conference iDEA2024 in April on Gadigal Land. It's a hybrid conference, so you can join in person or online, and one or two day tickets are available. DEA promise a terrific two days of tantalising talks, wonderful workshops and superb social events. Speakers include investigative journalist Padding Manning, author of Body Count: How Climate Change is Killing us, and Larissa Baldwin, CEO of GetUp! and an expert on gas policy and fracking on traditional owner land. Tickets available here.
The event also features the debate "Top Down or Bottom Up - what's going to get Australia to net- zero faster?" Tickets available here. Please contact Policy@acrrm.org.au at any time if you would like to provide feedback on a particular issue or consultation. You can read more about the College’s work in Climate and Health on our website.