Resilience and Equity: Healthcare in a Changing Climate

Recorded 13th February 2025. A hybrid seminar by Prof Cathriona
Russell (School of Religion, Theology and Peace Studies) as part of
the Medical and Health Humanities Seminar Series. Healthcare faces
comparable challenges to those of every other sector in society in
the context of a changing climate. In relation to ongoing
international agreements, healthcare will, for example, have to
enact mitigation strategies for net-zero in its contributions to
emissions, currently c.4.5% of global GHG emissions. More
significantly however healthcare will need to design strategies for
adaptation, aiming at resilience in ongoing provision and
effectiveness in securing justice; resilience in the face of more
extensive and more frequent temperature and precipitation extremes,
sea level rise, changes in land-use and food production; and
resilience in social conditions, in housing provision, in providing
access to health care, in disease prevention, all while
demographies continually shift (age and gender, poverty, and
displacement)[1]. The expected continuing increase in intensity and
frequency of adverse events will worsen health outcomes and health
inequalities, which themselves are drivers of climate change. If
healthcare contributes to the ‘good life’ through its impact on
health, then a key measure of its effectiveness will be its
commitment to building capability e.g. for preventative medicine
(A. Sen), and for ‘living with and for each other in just
institutions’ (P. Ricoeur). [1] IPCC, 2023 Summary for
Policy
Makers, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/
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