The Australian healthcare system is a significant contributor to climate change through its own carbon footprint, which is estimated to be 7% of Australia’s total carbon emissions. National and international peak health organisations are urging healthcare sectors to decrease their emissions as quickly as possible, in order to uphold our core mission to sustain health and our responsibility to first do no harm.
In this talk, Professor Tony Capon will introduce the findings of the Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health which published the report Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch in 2015, and canvass the implications of these findings for the future protection and promotion of human health and wellbeing.
The Victorian Government has a legislated target of net carbon zero by 2050 and is seeking to reduce Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions by 15-20 per cent from 2005 levels by the year 2020. The Victorian public health system is responsible for a quarter of the government’s reported carbon emissions from stationary energy; over 800,000 tonnes in 2016-17. The environmental performance of the health system is measured through several metrics.
