Europe Launches New Climate Change and Health Commission

Medscape

a day ago

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new European commission aimed at providing health sector solutions to what it called one of the defining health challenges of our time: climate change.
The Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health (PECCH) is an independent advisory group convened by WHO Europe that brings together 11 commissioners from across the region, with Sir Andrew Haines of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine as the chief scientific advisor. The commission will deliver recommendations that address the intersection of health and climate.
At a press briefing today in Reykjavík, Iceland, PECCH chair, former Icelandic Prime Minister Her Excellency Katrín Jakobsdóttir said that although climate change has been a big issue in global politics for decades, not enough has been done.
'We've seen too many reports and not enough action,' she said. 'I know it's difficult to implement policy on climate change, [but] we will be focused on what actually can be done. I'm optimistic that we will deliver concrete recommendations.'
At the Epicenter of Climate Change
Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world, with 2024 the warmest year on record, according to the European Environment Agency. Extreme weather events have caused up to 145,000 deaths across Europe in the past 40 years, with a majority caused by heatwaves. The changing climate also continues to alter the distribution of disease vectors, with the expansion of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses, and to impact food systems, water quality, and ecosystems.
Despite the growing threat posed by climate change, action — including within the health sector — remains inadequate to match the level of response required. PECCH will attempt to address the health impacts of climate change by determining interconnected health risks and opportunities for health improvement through adaptation and mitigation strategies, identifying gaps in government actions and policies, recommending strategies for action, increasing awareness on the role of health in climate policy, and advising the WHO.
Will Words Translate to Actions?
Professor of health systems research at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia and founding director of the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Jeffrey Braithwaite, PhD, told Medscape Medical News he believed the new commission holds a lot of promise.
Jeffrey Braithwaite, PhD
'It seems designed to help raise more awareness, with some jurisdictions, companies and institutions flagging a bit under the weight of disinformation,' said Braithwaite, who is past president of the International Society for Quality in Health Care.
'The US, under the current White House, is of course hostile to the climate change agenda, so a lot of heavy political lifting and keeping the agenda for change going will fall to Europe.'
Professor of population and planetary health at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, Australia, Lynne Madden, MBBS, MPH, MSc, said addressing climate change and health requires a systems approach to a very complex problem.
Lynne Madden, MBBS, MPH, MSc
'It appears that the commission is planning to take a systems approach and look at the interconnected global and regional risks to health to form recommendations to achieve a health net zero emission future. This is encouraging,' she told Medscape Medical News .
'Europe is probably the region most likely to make a commission like this work. What we don't need is more meetings that produce informed statements but very little real action that tackles climate change and its health effects. The big question is: Beyond the rhetoric, will the commission be able to do anything now that hasn't been done before to make national governments take meaningful action to halt climate change?'
She added that it was critical to increase the climate resilience of healthcare systems, commit to delivering net zero healthcare and preferably zero carbon healthcare, develop the climate health capacity of healthcare workforces, and ensure the education of health professionals on the health impacts of climate change and give them the competency to take action, including eliminating the delivery of unnecessary healthcare.
Healthcare's Huge Carbon Footprint
Others agreed it was time for the health sector to step up and to take accountability and action for its own carbon footprint, with the sector contributing roughly 5% of global emissions — more than all commercial air travel.
Kayvan Shokrollahi, MBBS, MSc, LLM
'Healthcare has a major impact on the environment, and it is one area where we see simultaneous cost savings along with most sustainability interventions. I like this because there is less tension, and politics can align better with 'this will save money and help the environment' rather than 'this will cost money,'' Kayvan Shokrollahi, MBBS, MSc, LLM, consultant plastic and laser surgeon and honorary clinical professor at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, told Medscape Medical News .
He recently conducted a carbon footprint study of his burn center to identify aspects of burn care that contribute most to the carbon footprint and wastage and to explore interventions to help reduce waste. He and his colleagues found that hospitals and surgical clinics are the second largest waste contributors in the UK, generating more than 6600 tons of waste per day. Current waste disposal practices such as incineration, landfilling, and sterilization post environmental threats. At the same time, up to 1 billion liters of water a year are wasted by running taps across the NHS pumping network to flush Pseudomonas and Legionella in the absence of other alternative solutions.
'Our research demonstrated a rough extrapolation of £2 million of savings from reduced plastic waste from one intervention whilst also saving 150 tons of CO 2 . Progress in healthcare sustainability is a case of implementing large numbers of simple cumulative interventions, not one big one.'
Braithwaite cited his and his colleagues' recent systematic review on strategies and tactics that could be used to reduce the impact of healthcare on climate change, of which they developed a framework to support the decarbonization of healthcare systems. Such strategies included changing clinical and surgical practices, reducing physical waste, and enabling change through actions of individuals and groups.
Looking forward, the PECCH will engage with representatives from other regions to work together on shared solutions. Its final recommendations for health and climate action will be presented during the World Health Assembly next May.