The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared Climate Change ‘the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century’ calling on the heath sector to take action to fulfil its duty of care to protect the health of current and future generations.

The Australian health sector contributed to 7.2% of Australia’s total carbon emissions in 2014-15, with hospitals and pharmaceuticals the major contributors. Primary health care’s role in reducing the health sector carbon footprint is through direct action to lower its own emissions contribution, but possibly more significantly indirectly by decreasing Australia’s reliance on hospital-based health care. The primary health care sector also has a role in building the resilience of communities, anticipating their climate risks, mitigating the impacts of climate change on health and wellbeing and strengthening the system’s resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and disasters. Globally, however, there are few examples of strategic approaches in primary health care.

AHHA is a founding member of the Global Green and Healthy Hospitals initiative and a key contributor to the development of the Framework for a National Strategy on Climate, Health and Well-Being for Australia. In 2020 AHHA worked extensively on the issues of natural disaster, bushfire and climate health system preparedness and resilience, as well as striving to ensure an equitable, evidence-based value driven recovery from COVID-19. Through this, AHHA has explored the opportunities and challenges facing the health system when responding to an increasingly volatile Australian climate.

With this background, Sydney North Health Network commissioned AHHA to develop a Climate and Health Strategy.