Long-haul a climate dilemma

It’s a disaster for New Zealand to host big international conferences

Overseas-trained doctor Dermot Coffey is checking his conscience about flights to his home country.

Dr Coffey, who immigrated 20 years ago, says he hasn’t been back to Ireland in the past four years and it would be hard never to make the trip again.

Keeping to the bare minimum is not ideal for family, he says, although longhaul travel is about the worst thing an individual can do for the environment.

On the other side of the ledger for this Christchurch-based specialist GP, a co-convenor of Ora Taiao – New Zealand Climate & Health Council, are the cycling and walking he and his family do. He says they don’t do a lot of car travel.

While he fully understands international medical graduates wanting to fly long haul to visit family and friends, he’s against frequent offshore conference-going by doctors.

Dr Coffey calls on doctors to question their need to attend, suggesting that virtual meetings will often suffice, and sabbaticals can be taken far less often, but for longer.

Offshore travel is a large contributor to DHBs’ greenhouse gas emissions. Capital & Coast DHB’s second-largest source of emissions in 2018/19 (before COVID-19 measures affected most travel) was international businessclass flights.

Business class should be a no-no, Dr Coffey says, as it pollutes far more than economy. Funding doctors’ flights for continuing medical education does not align with DHBs’ climate goals and statements, he adds.

And he says it’s a “disaster” for New Zealand to host big international conferences – including for the RNZCGP to host the WONCA Asia-Pacific Regional Conference.

“So, instead of 50 people going overseas you’ve got 2000 flying in…the emissions from that – regardless of whether the conference is zero carbon, or trees are planted, or everybody gets an environmentally friendly conference pack – the damage has been done by them getting here.”

These events won’t be acceptable in the future, he says. “It will turn the Christchurch Convention Centre into a white elephant, but the warnings were there very clearly before it was built. The pandemic has accelerated that.”

The pandemic-affected WONCA event, originally intended for Auckland, is not now on the college’s agenda.

RNZCGP president Samantha Murton says the pandemic has helped hugely in stopping a lot of air travel but this will return, “because people do that”.

“International visitors will come here as tourists, whether we have our conference or not,” Dr Murton says.

She points out airlines are working on fuel efficiency and alternative fuels.

However, “stopping people travelling by plane is like stopping Formula 1 racing”, Dr Murton says. It won’t happen: “[They] make money…they need to be responsible.”