Honourable senators, this item is adjourned in the name of Senator Clement, and I ask for leave of the Senate that, following my intervention, the balance of her time to speak to this item be reserved.

Colleagues, I rise today to speak to the subject of a net-zero emissions future.

I want to thank Senator Coyle for her ongoing leadership on the climate crisis. In my preparations, I read the speech she made in this chamber in February 2022 on the subject of Senator Galvez’s motion to recognize that climate change is an urgent crisis.

In her speech, Senator Coyle questioned if the motion could motivate senators to come together to better understand climate change and to seek solutions. Her answer was “yes.” And so, colleagues, today I will use a health lens and speak in favour of Inquiry No. 4.

“Why use a health lens?” you may ask. In 2009, a joint commission between The Lancet, an internationally renowned medical journal, and the University College London called climate change, “ . . . the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”

The Lancet continues to release an annual report called The Lancet Countdown, and in their 2023 report, they called out the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms.

They noted that the health risks of climate change are increasing across all dimensions monitored yet adaptation efforts have been insufficient to protect people from the growing hazards. They stressed the need for urgent efforts to ensure climate health hazards do not exceed the capacity of our health care systems to care for us.

Colleagues, you have heard me speak about the multiple capacity challenges currently facing our health care system. Today, my remarks will focus on three points: First, the relationship between climate change and human health with an emphasis on Canadian data; second, the relationship between climate change and the health care sector in Canada; and, finally, some of the enablers for our health care system to transition to net-zero emissions.

So let’s begin with the relationship between climate change and human health. Globally, health care professionals are witnessing not only how climate change is affecting health, but also how climate change is impacting health systems. Climate change is already harming the health of Canadians due to the increased frequency of extreme weather events and natural disasters.

Think back to the 2021 heat dome in British Columbia. It was the deadliest weather event in Canadian history with an estimated 619 heat-related deaths. Health care professionals are also seeing more respiratory issues from air pollution. Globally, fossil fuel‑related air pollution is associated with 6.7 million premature deaths annually, and Health Canada estimates that air pollution contributes to more than 15,000 deaths per year in Canada.

In 2016, it was calculated that the total economic cost to Canada for all health impacts attributable to air pollution was $120 billion or the equivalent of 6% of Canada’s gross domestic product.

Colleagues, you will also recall that Canada had its worst year on record for forest fires in 2023. Now, in April 2024, there are concerns for an even worse upcoming forest fire season.

Dr. Courtney Howard is an emergency room physician and international expert on the impacts of climate change on human health. In 2021, Dr. Howard and her colleagues published an article that examined the health impacts of a severe and prolonged wildfire season in Canada’s high subarctic. The article focused on the Northwest Territories where, in 2014, moderate-to-severe drought conditions led to a severe fire season with 385 fires burning down 3.4 million hectares of forest. The wildfires caused two-and-a-half months of consistent smoke exposure for the residents of Yellowknife and adjacent Indigenous communities. In fact, some Northwest Territories residents refer to this season as “the lost summer” or “the summer of smoke.”

To assess the burden of wildfire smoke on health resources, the study compared 2014 to previous non-extreme fire years. They examined dispensations of salbutamol — that’s the blue puffer, which is a medication used to relieve symptoms of coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath — as well as clinic visits, emergency room visits and hospital admissions for respiratory causes.

The severe wildfires and extended poor air quality were found to be associated with increases in health resource utilization. The study found that, in 2014, salbutamol dispensations increased by 48%; clinic visits for asthma, pneumonia and cough increased; emergency room visits for asthma doubled; emergency room visits for pneumonia increased by 57%; and hospitalizations for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease also increased. Some of the impacts were disproportionately seen among specific populations, such as children and Indigenous individuals.

The Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry will be studying wildfires in Canada and their impact on forestry and agriculture industries. I look forward to reading their report and recommendations because climate solutions to reduce wildfires will reduce air pollution and will not only increase health and well-being but can also reduce health resource utilization for any climate change-related respiratory issues.

For my second point, let’s briefly touch on the health care sector’s impact on climate change. The health care sector is estimated to be responsible for 4.6% of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, globally, Canada has the second-highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions from the health care sector.

Now, we all recognize that Canada’s health care facilities are critical community assets that need to remain open and provide care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, regardless of what crises the country may be facing. Yet many of our health care facilities are among Canada’s oldest public infrastructures in use today, with almost 50% of facilities having been built over 50 years ago.

Health care facilities are significant contributors to Canada’s health care sector greenhouse gas emissions because of their age, physical needs and lower energy efficiency. And when you combine aging infrastructure, deferred maintenance and some facilities having been built in high-risk zones such as flood plains, it is easier to understand how climate health hazards could exceed the capacity of the health care system to look after Canadians.

For my third and last point, I want to highlight some of the enablers for the Canadian health care system to transition to a net-zero future. In the Canadian Medical Association’s policy on environmentally sustainable health systems in Canada, they outline the need to maximize our health care systems’ resilience to the increasing health needs and other impacts of the escalating climate crisis and to minimize the negative impacts that our health care systems have on the environment and climate change.

In 2021, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, or COP 26, Canada made a commitment to deliver a low-carbon, sustainable health system, but did not identify a net-zero target. In contrast, Britain’s National Health Service, or NHS, is a global health leader that has been tracking and reporting on its carbon footprint for the last 14 years.

In 2020, the NHS declared its commitment to net zero with two clear and ambitious targets: first, to reach net zero by 2040 with an 80% reduction in emissions under direct NHS control; and second, to reach net zero by 2045 with an 80% reduction in the emissions that the NHS can influence. Their early projections estimate that by 2040, 5,770 lives will be saved in the United Kingdom per year due to reductions in air pollution.

That said, the Canadian health care system does acknowledge its responsibility to reduce its carbon footprint and to minimize the widespread harms to human health. HealthCareCAN is the national voice of health care organizations and hospitals across Canada. It supports its members’ net-zero initiatives to “green” their operations, ranging from easy-to-implement projects to more extensive and expensive building retrofits.

One example of an easy-to-implement enabler is to change the anaesthetic gases used during operative procedures. Certain anaesthetic gases, like desflurane, have high carbon footprints, with desflurane estimated to be 2,450 times more potent as a greenhouse gas emission compared to carbon dioxide. Eliminating the use of desflurane is one of a hospital’s most impactful interventions to lower carbon emissions, and so dozens of hospitals across Canada have removed desflurane from their operating rooms and switched to less carbon-intensive anaesthetic gases. Health care facilities also produce significant amounts of waste, with the worst offenders being single-use, disposable items. Thankfully, there are initiatives in Canada to reduce health care facilities’ reliance on disposables and divert waste from landfills.

Finally, another enabler is to invest in health infrastructure and retrofit health care facilities. You have just heard how many of Canada’s health care facilities are amongst our oldest and most energy-intensive instances of public infrastructure in use today. Investments in health facility infrastructure can reduce its vulnerability to the impacts of extreme climate events and reduce the health care sector’s greenhouse gas emissions through the building of more energy-efficient facilities that use cleaner and more sustainable energy sources.

In closing, I was pleased to see the leadership of Canadian health care professionals, associations and organizations lighting the way toward net-zero, environmentally sustainable and climate-resilient health care systems. A path forward for a net‑zero health care system in Canada is possible. I am also honoured to add my voice to those of Senators Coyle, Galvez, Yussuff, Klyne, Quinn, Black, Omidvar, Kutcher and Loffreda. Colleagues, thank you and meegwetch for your attention.