Devex Checkup: How medical products contribute to the climate crisis

Dolutegravir, an HIV medicine, protects millions of people around the world. So does medical oxygen. And long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets. But they also have something else in common. The supply chains for these products are contributing greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere at an outsized rate.

Ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP 28, which starts today, Unitaid has named 10 lifesaving products — including medications for tuberculosis and malaria and some medical diagnostics — whose supply chains combine to contribute 3.5 million tons of emissions.

The aim here is not to restrict access to these critical tools and drugs, but to spotlight how health system supply chains are contributing to the current climate crisis, hopefully spurring innovations that can cut those emissions. Unitaid told my colleague Jenny Lei Ravelo that potential solutions include recycling the solvents used in the production of drugs such as dolutegravir, switching to renewable energy to produce them, and delivering them in bulk packaging.