Effects of Inhaled Anesthetics on Global Warming and Solutions-A Review

Accelerated changes in climate are already affecting human health, multiplying the existing health problems and increasing the burden of medical care. In recent years, however, it has been found that health care is also an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. Anesthetic gases are greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, which will produce greenhouse effect by absorbing infrared radiation and react with ozone to destroy the ozone layer. Anesthesia providers have a duty to minimize unnecessary anesthetic gas emissions and lower environmental impact in practice. This paper will mainly discuss the impact of climate change on various aspects of human health, explore the impact mechanism of inhaled anesthetics on climate change, and put forward four solutions for reducing anesthetic gases - reduce, remove, recycle and replace by improving the “3R” principle of waste reduction. Only by changing the way of thinking and corresponding practice to realize the sustainability of anesthesia can we truly fulfill the desire of “do no harm”.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.