大象传媒

Global climate change is impacting food systems, biodiversity, and ecosystems, with major implications for health.听 Keeping below the lower target of 1.5听掳C stipulated in the Paris Agreement requires a tremendous colletive effort to reduce 50% of the emissions by 2030, followed by net zero in 2050. It is clear that every sector in the society needs a transformational change to become sustainable and low carbon.听

The health system is not an exception. The set of activities and health services delivered generate a carbon footprint equivalent to 4-5% of the global carbon emissions. Ultimately, the health system is not only suffering from the consequences of climate change but is also a major contributor to the problem.听

There is an international growing movement advocating that the health sector should lead by example and become sustainable and low carbon itself.听At BCEPS, the PhD candidate Anand Bhopal, together with his supervisors Ole F Norheim and Kristine B忙ar酶e,听is exploring fair pathways to low-carbon healthcare,听highlighting the intersecting challenges of inequality between countries, inequality within countries, poverty eradication and achieving health for all.

The aim is to assist policy makers in conceptualising and ultimately prioritising different health and climate-related interventions. Firstly, by developing a conceptual framework to examine describe the relevance of carbon emissions for healthcare priority setting and secondly, by undertaking qualitative interviews with policymakers in low-, middle- and high-income settings to explore implementation challenges.

Deliverables and milestones

A Green Transition in the Norwegian Health Sector

Supported by听the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET) at the University of Bergen, the听aim of this project was to build a coalition of researchers, policy makers, clinicians and leaders across Norway to map out existing climate work in the health sector and develop a comprehensive strategy to decarbonise the Norwegian healthcar system.

The leading team was the BCEPS PhD candidates Anand Bhopal and Emily McLean, the research track medical student's Sara Eriksen and Leo Larsen and the medical student Sofie Shrivastava.

They successfully finished the project in 2021 and the main activities were:听

• Roundtable discussions involving regional and national policy makers, healthcare workers, researchers, and non-governmental organisations
• Synthesising the available evidence on carbon emissions from the health sector, interviews with key stakeholders to identify existing work in Norway and best practice case studies from overseas.
• Launching a final report attended by the leader of the WHO/COP26 Health Program and featured on Norway鈥檚 flagship morning political radio broadcast 鈥榥yhetsmorgen鈥�.

The report (English and Norwegian versions), background information and media coverage can be found on听

Inaugural Seminar Series on Climate Change and Priority Setting in Health听

BCEPS hosted its inaugural seminar series on climate change and priority setting in health in Spring 2021 speakers from Oxford University, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Speakers explored the economic, philosophical and demographic implications of climate change for fair priority setting in health. All recordings are available听here.

Supervision of medical and Master's students:

• Kristin Ulveseter (UiB medical student, 鈥橢thical obligations of the Norwegian government to facilitate the Planetary Health Diet: a seven-step ethical analysis鈥�).
• Sid Sharma (Harvard Master's student, 鈥橳he global temperature-related mortality impact of earlier decarbonization for the Australian health sector and economy: A modelling study鈥�).
• Ingrid Azevedo (UiB Master's student, 鈥橰elationship between universal health coverage and healthcare-related carbon emissions: an international analysis鈥�).

Scientific Publications

• Bhopal A,听B忙r酶e K. 听Journal of Medical Ethics听2023.
• Bhopal A, B忙r酶e K, Norheim OF.听听Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 2022.听
• Sharma S, Bressler RD,听Bhopal A,听Norheim OF.听PLoS One 2022.听
• Anand Bhopal, Ole F. Norheim.听听BMJ听2021.
• Bhopal A, Shrivastava SH.听.听Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen听2021 .
• Bhopal, Anand; Medhin, Haileselassie;听B忙r酶e, Kristine;听Norheim, Ole Frithjof.听听World Medical & Health Policy (WMHP)听2021.