GENEVA: Global healthcare has a significant impact on the environment but there are ways it could slash its greenhouse gas emissions without increasing production costs, the international health agency Unitaid said Tuesday.
Unitaid, which works on ensuring equitable access to medical innovations, looked at the production chain in 10 key healthcare products, such as malaria and HIV medicines.
It found that emissions could realistically be reduced by 70 percent by 2030 — more than half of that reduction without increasing production costs.
The findings were released ahead of the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai, which runs from Thursday until December 12 — and, for the first time, includes a day focused on the climate and health, on December 3.
Unitaid wants to advance health products that are less harmful to the environment, more resilient, and better adapted to climate and environmental risks.
The agency’s results director Vincent Bretin said climate change was putting health systems under greater stress, but the health sector itself was also contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, and its supply chains producing significant waste.
A Unitaid report looked at how the global healthcare system could reduce carbon emissions and mitigate its impact on nature.
“As the source of 4.6 percent of global emissions, health value chains contribute significantly to climate change,” the report said.
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