News Release

Doctors must discuss climate change and health with patients

Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Lancet_DELETED

In the third Comment with the Series, Professor Mike Gill, University of Surrey, UK, and Dr Robin Stott, on the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012—both co-chairs of the UK Climate and Health Council—discuss the steps the medical profession must take to accelerate the role of health in the climate change debate.

They say: "The only heartening aspect of this bleak terrain is the gathering awareness that many of the measures needed to make the necessary reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions are those needed to protect and improve global health. Overall, what is good for tackling climate change is good for health."

They add: "Who better to spell out this message than health professionals? We have the evidence, a good story to tell that dramatically shifts the lens through which climate change is perceived, and we have public trust…To maximise our influence, we must be much clearer than we have been to the public, to patients, and to politicians about the risks of doing nothing and the benefits to individual and global health of effective action. We should justify this message through personal example, and we should influence the organisations where we work to reduce their emissions."

The authors call for a low carbon development fund of at least US$150 billion for the G77 group of developing countries—a sum, they say, could be raised by imposition of $5 tax on each of the 20 billion barrels of oil used by OCED countries each year, and a tax on airline tickets.*

Finally, they call for an international body of doctors similar to the UK's Climate and Health Council, to represent the views of doctors on this crucial issue. They conclude: "The Climate and Health Council is approaching colleagues across the world who have expressed interest in this idea, and inviting doctors to put themselves forward, particularly those from the parts of the world that will suffer the most adverse effects of climate change. Let us collectively make sure that we do not fail present or future generations."

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Dr Robin Stott T) +44 (0)208 6924667 / +44 (0)7718904737 E) stott@dircon.co.uk

Professor Mike Gill, University of Surrey, UK. T) +44 (0)207 6254287 / +44 (0) 7867538245 E) mgilm1@gmail.com

For full Comment, see: http://press.thelancet.com/tlhaccrs.pdf

*Note to editors: Extra info on airline tickets provided by authors (but not in text of Comment): There are 760 million international passengers a year. A US$20 tax on each ticket will therefore raise about $15 billion. The figures for the overall number of domestic passengers in OECD countries is difficult to come by, but there are close to 2 billion people using European airports each year. Assuming that there are an equivalent number of domestic passengers using USA and other OECD country airports, giving a totla 4 billion passengers. A $10 tax on each of these tickets will raise the rest of the shortfall for a low carbon development fund, with leeway for inaccuracies and any double counting in the estimates. The G77 countries are looking at an air ticket tax, and at present they are being more cautious than OECD countries— and suggesting $10 dollars from each of the international passengers, and currently no mention of extra tax on domestic flights.


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