Climate Change and Health: Health Academics Could Do More to Build Upon the Success of Virtual Conferences During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Climate change is the greatest global health threat of the 21st century. Urgent mitigating interventions are needed to stop the current trend and prevent catastrophic irreversible damage to human health.

Health practitioners and scientists have a special responsibility to reduce carbon emissions from all health sectors, and to lead by example by minimizing their own contribution. For the health academic community this contribution mainly comes from long-distance global travel to attend scientific and educational meetings.

The COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions and social distancing requirements offered an invaluable opportunity to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of virtual conferences. This experience showed that the virtual approach was not only as feasible as in-person, but significantly more effective in reducing carbon emissions while also increasing accessibility and inclusion for attendees across the world.

However, once the restrictions were lifted, in-person attendance was rapidly reinstated as the sole method for most events or, in a hybrid format with virtual attendance. This could be due to lack of awareness or even misinformation amongst the health community about the connection between climate change and human health outcomes. Climate change and its impact on health should have greater consideration in the education of health professionals, and effective mitigating measures should receive more focus and normalisation through positive messaging in current affairs, medical publications and social media.