Establishing Ireland’s Healthcare Greenhouse Gas Baseline: Key Findings, Implications, and Future Directions

Abstract

As climate change accelerates towards catastrophic thresholds, healthcare faces a dual responsibility: protecting population health while minimising its environmental footprint. The scale of action required is unprecedented. Healthcare contributes an estimated 4.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe).¹ At COP26 in 2021, 50 countries committed to developing climate-resilient health systems, and 14, including Ireland, pledged to become net-zero health services by 2050.² Yet, scalable, replicable approaches to measuring healthcare GHGe and translating this into action remain limited...