Healthcare Divest from Fossil Fuels

Health professionals are calling on US health sector leaders to acknowledge, and take concrete measures to redress the sector's large institutional investments in fossil fuels. These ongoing investments represent the single largest source of health sector ghg emissions still wholly ignored by senior health sector leaders. Since 2019, the First Do No Harm campaign has engaged senior executives at major private US health systems and leaders of leading US healthcare policy organizations; they all acknowledge the profound harm to global health from climate change and fossil fuels; they make public pronouncements of the special responsibility of the health sector to take strong climate action; the National Academy of Medicine has called for the health sector to "decarbonize". Indeed, many US hospitals now engage in incremental emission-reduction programs inside their clinics; using less electricity, reprocessing surgical supplies, installing solar panels, meatless Mondays - all good things - yet, at the same time large health systems (Kaiser Permanente, Providence, Mayo Clinic - and many, many others across the nation) still invest millions - in some cases billions - in oil, coal and gas production. The root cause of the problem. Further, the largest health-policy organizations (National Academy of Medicie, Healthcare without Harm), who otherwise advocate publically for climate-health leadershp, say literally nothing about these ongoing, health-harming investments. Health professionals are trained to heal - not harm. We expect the same from our executives and institutions. It's 2026. We are in the era of climate change. It's time - of all sectors - #HealthcareDivest from fossil fuels.