Carbon footprinting in health systems: one small step towards planetary health

Climate change is without doubt one of the major threats facing public health. While we are already experiencing extreme weather events worldwide, the longer term impacts on health will include increased heat-related mortality, increased food-borne disease, and increased risk of vector-borne and water-borne disease.1 Coupled with increasing—and mobile—populations and antimicrobial resistance, the pressures on health systems will be substantial. Is it surprising then that the Paris Agreement formally linked human and planetary health so clearly and sought to harness leadership from the health sector to achieve robust change? It is in this light that efforts to assess the carbon footprinting of different elements of health care are needed.