Dr. Trevor Hancock is a public health physician, a retired Professor of Public Health at UVic, and was a co-founder of both the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care.
A key challenge we face is to envision a health-care system that is compatible with a future society that is in turn compatible with the Earth’s limited biocapacity and resources. That would be a resilient health-care system.
The health sector is an economic giant. Thus, it must play a significant role in strengthening Canada’s focus on climate change mitigation, including reducing its own contributions to climate change.
The Declaration on Climate and Health issued at the 28th UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in December failed an important test. But while political leadership is lacking, health sector leadership is building.
For the first time in 30 years, the UN's annual COP28 Climate Conference had a day devoted to health. But world ministers, including Canada's, could not bring themselves to take a bold stance.
There is no such thing as a Canadian health-care system. There is, however, a Canadian way of funding health services and it's not delivering what we need.
The theme for World Health Day reflects a growing global concern with the health impacts of massive and rapid human-driven ecological changes. While climate change is front of mind, having been recognized as “the single biggest health threat facing humanity” by the WHO as far back as 2008, the changes and challenges we face are far greater than that.
Canada has committed to developing climate-resilient, low-carbon health systems. But regrettably, Canada did not commit to creating a net-zero emissions health-care system. It's now up to provincial governments.
A coalition of health professionals recently rallied in Victoria, B.C., to declare a state of climate emergency in B.C. and lay out a plan for the transformative change that will improve the health of the people of B.C. – and the world beyond.
The government agency CIHR released two documents meant to address issues important to the health of Canadians and direct research toward them. But both are unforgivably ignorant of the importance of the ecological determinants of health.