International comparison of health care carbon footprints
Open accessAbstract
Abstract Climate change confronts the health care sector with a dual challenge. Accumulating climate impacts are putting an increased burden on the service provision of already stressed health care systems in many regions of the world. At the same time, the Paris agreement requires rapid emission reductions in all sectors of the global economy to stay well below the 2 °C target. This study shows that in OECD countries, China, and India, health care on average accounts for 5% of the national CO 2 footprint making the sector comparable in importance to the food sector. Some countries have seen reduced CO 2 emissions related to health care despite growing expenditures since 2000, mirroring their economy wide emission trends. The average per capita health carbon footprint across the country sample in 2014 was 0.6 tCO 2 , varying between 1.51 tCO 2 /cap in the US and 0.06 tCO 2 /cap in India. A statistical analysis shows that the carbon intensity of the domestic energy system, the energy intensity of the domestic economy, and health care expenditure together explain half of the variance in per capita health carbon footprints. Our results indicate that important leverage points exist inside and outside the health sector. We discuss our findings in the context of the existing literature on the potentials and challenges of reducing GHG emissions in the health and energy sector.
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The health sector is a main emitter of environmental pollutants that negatively affect health.
“the sector itself, which aims to protect health, is paradoxically at the same time the main emitter of environmental pollutants that have a negative impact on health itself.”
From Towards Green and Sustainable Healthcare: A Literature Review and Research Agenda for Green Leadership in the Healthcare Sector (2023) · cites this paper as [14]
The Introduction describes health care as a significant source of CO₂ emissions and links climate change to harms to health. The Size and composition section reports that health care accounted for an average of 5.5% of the national carbon footprint in the countries studied. These passages support a substantial contribution, but not the claim that health care is the main emitter of environmental pollutants generally. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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- Authors
- Pichler, P.-P., Jaccard, I. S., Weisz, U., & Weisz, H.
- Affiliations
- Leibniz Association (DE)
- BOKU University (AT)
- Corresponding author
- Weisz, Ulli
- Weisz, Helga
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2019-05-24
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 064004
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2936403767
- Cited by
- 812
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 130 · 2025: 179 · 2024: 182 · 2023: 134 · 2022: 81 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 41 · 2019: 11
- FWCI
- 19.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Research Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- edoc Publication server (Humboldt University of Berlin) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Publication Database PIK (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Austrian Climate Research Program (project no GZB670168)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Energy, Environment, Economic Growth
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Climate Change and Health Impacts
- Keywords
- greenhouse gas emissions, health care expenditure, energy intensity, per capita emissions, cross-national comparison, climate change mitigation, Paris Agreement, OECD countries, China, India
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