BMA and CLIMATE CHANGE

The British Medical Association dedicates several pages of its Environmental Health website section to how health professionals can take action on climate change.

Their resource "provides an overview of climate change and what it means for the UK. The key purpose is to highlight what healthcare professionals and health organisations can do to reduce their carbon footprint. The resource includes examples of good practice and links to sources of further information."

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The BMA's Health Professionals Taking Action on Climate Change includes sections on

• What is climate change?
  
  

• What are the causes of climate change?
  
  
• How has the climate changed?
  
  
• What are the consequences and implications?
  
  
• What are the health implications?
  
  
• How can the impact of climate change be reduced?
  
  
• What is being done globally?
  
  
• What is being done in the UK
  
  
• Recommendations: what can health professionals do?
  
  
• Examples of good practice
  
  
• What is the BMA doing?

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The health sector has to become proactive, not reactive.... We are in a time of uncertainty. Human health will continue to be affected directly and indirectly by climate change, and health systems will need to act to prevent and manage the impacts on populations.... What should the health sector do? It needs to shift from a reactive to a proactive attitude, and to learn from other sectors about anticipating risks.

— Bettina Menne and Roberto Bertollini, Health and Climate Change: A Call for Action (British Medical Journal editorial of 29 November 2005)

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