The RCP is campaigning to make sure UK climate and sustainability policy protects population health.
'We will make the case for ambitious government action to tackle climate change, recognising that it is the biggest long-term threat to health in the UK and globally. We will use our insight and expertise to support the NHS to deliver its net zero commitments. We will promote behaviour change – for example in terms of travel and fuels burnt at home – which reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improves public health, and will continue to campaign for better air quality across the UK. We will improve the knowledge of healthcare professionals about the health impacts of climate change.'
Agreed at RCP Council, 2022
Climate change represents the biggest long-term threat to human health
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects an excess of 250,000 deaths per year by 2050 attributable to climate change due to heat, undernutrition, malaria and diarrheal disease, with more than half of this excess mortality projected for Africa.
Record temperatures experienced recently in the UK serves as a reminder that while the impacts of climate change are not felt equally, the UK will not be immune to its effects.
The NHS itself has a significant impact on the UK’s carbon footprint – NHS England is responsible for around 40% of the country’s public sector and 4% of total emissions. It aims to become the world’s first net zero health service and has set targets to achieve this, including reaching net zero in the emissions it controls directly by 2040.
What is the RCP doing?
Following consultation with our members in 2022, the RCP formally adopted sustainability and climate change as one of its four policy and campaigns priorities for the first time. This work is steered by an RCP advisory group, with members from different career grades and external experts, that looks at what more can be done in the health service – and by medicine in particular – to improve healthcare sustainability.
A key element of the RCP’s work in this space is to support physicians to reduce the environmental impact of clinical care. This year, the RCP published an updated version of its Green physician toolkit, which supports physicians to play their part in tackling the climate crisis with an updated range of actions to deliver more sustainable care and advice on managing climate-related health risks.
Green physician toolkit
Influencing national policy
The RCP campaigns for government to recognise the climate crisis as a public health issue and to take action on climate change because of its health impacts.
The RCP view on healthcare sustainability and climate change set out recommendations for the UK government and NHS to improve the sustainability of healthcare delivery and reduce the health impacts of climate change.
The government must:
- Prioritise a just transition from fossil fuels, redirecting all funding and subsidies to renewable energy sources and technologies and implement complementary policy initiatives to ensure this process does not exacerbate health inequalities
- Put prevention at the heart of health and wider government policy, recognising that reducing avoidable ill health and demand for healthcare will require cross-government action and has environmental, health and economic benefits.Â
The NHS must:
- Prioritise initiatives to reduce the environmental impact of healthcare delivery within the NHS must be appropriately funded, including capital investment where necessary
- Recognise the link between climate change mitigation and improved health outcomes, and for this to be leveraged by NHS bodies and systems in national, regional and local health inequalities work
- Update the NHS constitution to include the net zero targets.
As a founding member of UKHACC, the RCP actively contributes to UKHACC policy reports as well as working with UKHACC to influence key decision makers and campaign for the delivery of more sustainable healthcare. Ahead of COP29, the RCP was a signatory of a UKHACC letter to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and in 2023, called on MPs to oppose new oil and gas licences in a joint letter from the medical community.Â
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RCP operational sustainability
The RCP is committed to minimising the environmental impacts of its operations. In 2025, the RCP published a report card on its progress in meeting the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC) Commitments, a set of guiding principles designed by UKHACC to help health organisations take steps to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The RCP has committed to update this report card annually to measure its progress.
