Public BoD papers 26.5.22

Many of the actions needed to tackle climate change directly improve patient care and health and wellbeing. This is because many of the drivers of climate change are also the drivers of ill health and health inequalities. For example, the combustion of fossil fuels is the primary contributor to ill-health from air pollution. Air quality is of significant concern as recent data, produced by the Central Office of Public Interest (Copi) and Imperial College London, as has indicated that three of the Trust sites exceed World Health Organisation air quality guidelines. Furthermore, that the Withington site sits in the top tier of the ranking and is within the most polluted addresses in the UK.

Furthermore, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) have sets out along-term environmental vision to be carbon neutral by 2038. The urgent actions that will need to be taken within the first five years were identified in the 5-Year Environment Plan for Greater Manchester 2019-2024 and identified five major environmental challenges have been identified as threats to future health and prosperity to the region: • Mitigating climate change: the aim to be carbon neutral. • Air Quality: improve the city’s air quality. • Sustainable consumption and production: to put Greater Manchester on a path to being a circular economy, recycling 65 municipal waste and reducing the amount of waste it produces. • Natural environment: to protect, maintain and enhance Greater Manchester’s natural environment. • Resilience and adaptation to climate change: to be prepared for the impacts of climate change and due to climate shocks and stresses 1.3 Climate Change and COVID-19 A failure to tackle climate change will mean that pandemics happen more frequently spread more rapidly and kill more people. “ Pandemics are a direct consequence of human activity – particularly our global financial and economic systems, based on a limited paradigm that prizes economic growth at any cost.”

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