Environment and health

Health, climate change and ethics – an overview

On 12 October 2023 we published a new overview paper identifying where key ethical issues are arising in efforts to respond to the health impacts of climate change. We propose a set of principles and themes for considering these ethical issues within policy making decisions.

This paper is the outcome of a scoping exercise we carried out to identify ethical issues, including in relation to actions designed to mitigate and adapt to climate change. It examines these ethical issues under three linked headings:

• the ethics of the climate crisis
• ethical issues arising in responses to the climate crisis
• ethical issues relating to research into those responses

Download the paper: Health, climate change and ethics - an overview