Rethink intensive care medicine in a sustainable word

ICM and planet boundaries : think the sustainability

Abstract

Climate change is one of the consequences of the anthropic impact on earth ecosystem. It is a “Fundamental threat to human health” as declared by WHO, through direct consequences (heat waves, flooding …) or indirect (food insecurity, migration …). Healthcare providers will be at the frontline facing this major change. But as healthcare systems rely on an industrial complex, it uses energy, which is based on fossil fuels. Critical care, also called intensive care, produces intensively greenhouse gases . This article describes the foreseeable sanitary impact of climate change, the main source of greenhouse gases emission and gives some tools to understand decarbonisation lever. It constitutes a first step for intensive care unit healthcare workers teaching.