Why you should consider becoming Chair of UKHACC

I have been the chair of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change for almost six years, and my time as chair will finish in September. Perhaps I could have tried to change the rules and stay, but six years is long enough for anybody to be chair of anything. New ideas, energy, and dynamism are needed, and perhaps you could be the person to bring them to the Alliance.

The Alliance was familiar to me, although like others I struggled to remember its name. I’d never, however, thought of being the chair, until somebody approached me to apply. I was interviewed along with one other person and appointed, but I confess now that when interviewed I didn’t know what COP was. (In case you don’t know it’s the annual UN conference on climate change: COP stands for the Conference of the Parties.) If you’re unsure of the jargon of climate change (what, for example, is an NDC?). don’t worry you’ll soon pick it up.

I should have known what COP stood for because I’d been writing about climate change in the BMJ (where I was once the editor) since the early 90s. I did feel strongly, even fearfully, about climate change, particularly because of what it will mean for my children and grandchildren. I’m 72 and used to think that I’d be dead before climate change really hit hard, but with a website telling me that I might live another 18 years or even longer (my predecessor as editor of the BMJ is about to be 96) it’s quite conceivable that I could live to see social collapse from the climate crisis before I die. You’ll know that climate change is already killing many and forcing them from their land, and the first requirement for becoming chair of UKHACC is that you care passionately about the climate and nature crisis.

Although I’d been writing about climate change since the early 90s, I hadn’t made big changes in my lifestyle, and because I was working in global health I flew a great deal. Like Fiona Godlee, one of the founders of UKHACC and my successor as editor of the BMJ, I was a “carbon criminal.” Becoming chair led to changes in my personal life. I switched to a largely plant-based diet, but I have not become a vegetarian let alone a vegan. I stopped driving, which wasn’t hard as I’ve always preferred cycling and live in a place that doesn’t necessitate driving. I’ve stopped flying to everywhere except Mexico, but I fly there twice a year because I have family and grandchildren there. As a result my carbon footprint is way above my fair global share.  I confess this because it illustrates how difficult we find it to break out of ways of living that are destroying the planet.

By some measures my time as chair has been a success, but by other measures it’s been a failure. To start with the failures, global emissions of greenhouse gases have increased every year since I became chair, and 2024 saw more emissions than any previous year. The last two years have been the hottest on record, and by a long way. The climate crisis is accelerating. Extreme storms, floods, wildfires, heatwaves, deforestation, and desertification have all increased, and many young people live in dread of the future, declining to have children. Now we have a president of the United States who doesn’t believe in climate change despite large parts of Los Angeles burning to the ground while he waited to become president.

With such a picture it might be easy to despair, but that would be the wrong thing to do. We must continue, not least for our own mental health. It’s still possible to avoid the worst of climate change, and, although the US president may have turned his back on climate change, many countries, cities, and organisations (including in the US) are taking the crisis more seriously. There will become a moment, perhaps not too late, as the crisis worsens when countering climate change will be the world’s top priority. We should all think what we will be able to tell our grandchildren or all young people what we did about climate change. Being chair of UKHACC will be something to tell them.

One success has been an increase in our members from 14 to 50, and more importantly our members take sustainability much more seriously. It’s a priority for many. Our members’ members number around a million, most of the NHS workforce. Despite our name, we were when I started very English and doctor dominated. Now we have forged strong links in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. We have dentists, pharmacists, paramedics, and vets as members. Our governance has improved, and we have elected trustees who are energetic and committed. 

We’ve worked at every level from global to personal. We’re founder members of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, and we coordinated publishing editorials on the harm to health from climate change in some 300 health journals all around the world. Much of our work is national, and we were important in getting the NHS net-zero targets written into the Health and Care Act. We produced a manifesto early and circulated it to all candidates in the general election. Lack of resources means we haven’t done so much regionally, but we did campaign on the extension of the Ultra Low Emission Zone in London. This was an example of something that our members supported but did not want to campaign on themselves because of the (unfortunate) political overtones. We have been closely involved with the Greener NHS Programme. The first director of UKHACC became the first NHS Chief Sustainability Officer. Our members are asked to sign up to 11 commitments, including measuring their carbon footprint, developing a plan to get to net-zero, changing their food and travel policies, and disinvesting from fossil fuels. Funded by the Health Foundation we produced with all our surgical members a report on green surgery that is the best document in the world on decarbonising surgery. We encourage all our members to make professional and personal changes to lower their carbon footprint, recognising that the main begetter of action is action.

This year our strategic priority is adaptation or resilience as its increasingly called. Along with most other bodies working to counter the climate and nature crisis, and indeed with the government, we have concentrated on mitigating the crisis, but now the threat is here: we are “in the storm” that we have been trying to avoid. The country, the health system, and the population are vulnerable to storms, floods, heat, and even wildfires that will become rapidly worse, and must find ways to minimise their impact.

I see two broad ways in which we can increase our impact. Firstly, we must recognise that we are an Alliance and that our members have stronger brands and much greater resources than the central organisation of UKHACC, which has only one employee. The more our members do the more impact we can have. Secondly, we must work with other groups—environmentalists, lawyers, community groups, bankers, whomever. Health professionals have been rather apart from the broader movement, explaining why we have not had the influence we should have—and why health came into the main agenda of COP only at the 28^th meeting. We are members of the Climate Coalition and seem to be almost the only health organisation among more than a hundred members.

As my paragraph on failures shows, much needs to be done, and you could be the person to lead a new phase. It would be good if we could grow in members, funding, and staff. Should we extend our categories of membership beyond organisations of health professionals to perhaps NHS trusts, other third-sector organisations, and even private sector companies? Can we raise more funds, allowing us to do much more, including supporting our members to make changes? How can we forge closer relationships with other organisations? And perhaps most importantly can we find new ways to increase our impact, making a bigger contribution to reducing harm from the major threat to global health? You will have your own ideas, probably much better ones than I have had, and I urge you to apply to be chair of UKHACC. Importantly , you’ll enjoy the work. Here’s more information on the job and how to apply: https://ukhealthalliance.org/news-item/advert-chair-of-the-board-of-trustees/