Anesthetic gas emissions have dropped by 27% in last decade, but there's room for improvement

April 3, 2025 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlightedthe following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread by Lund University Gases used in anesthesia are potent greenhouse gases, and their total global impact has not previously been known. A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health led by Lund University shows that greenhouse gas emissions from anesthetic gases have decreased by 27% over the last 10 years.

By swapping out the anesthetic gas with the highest climate impact, the climate impact of anesthetic gases could have been reduced by a further 69%. Halogenated anesthetic gases are a group of volatile anesthetics used to induce and maintain unconsciousness during various medical procedures. The results of the current study show that global greenhouse gas emissions from anesthetic gases have decreased by 27% over the last decade to about 2 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.



The decrease is mainly due to high-income countries reducing the use of desflurane, the anesthetic gas with the highest climate impact. The EU has decided to ban the gas from January 2026, but at the same time, the use of desflurane has increased significantly in some countries. This now risks jeopardizing progress, say the researchers.

"Desflurane is 2,500 times more potent than carbon dioxide. High-income countries, such as the United States, have sharply reduced their use, but the gas still accounts for more than 60% of their climate emissions from anesthetic gases. In some countries, such as Japan, China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, we see an increase in desflurane use," says Adrien Talbot, doctoral student in anesthesiology and intensive care at Lund University and senior consultant at Helsingborg Hospital.

He has been leading the research together with Peter Bentzer, senior lecturer in Anesthesia and Intensive Care at Lund University and senior consultant at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö. The study is based on global sales data of anesthetic gases from 91 countries—covering 80% of the world's population. The researchers calculated the climate impact using global warming potentials, carbon dioxide equivalents, for a 100-year period and found that anesthetic gases are a significant—but avoidable—source of greenhouse gas emissions in health care.

"We then examined the trends in usage of the most common anesthetic gases between 2014 and 2023. The climate impact of desflurane in high-income countries halved over the 10-year period. However, in middle-income countries , emissions from the gas tripled even though the only benefit is a marginally shorter wake-up time," says Talbot.

A key to further reducing emissions is a broader transition to sevoflurane, an anesthetic gas with a significantly lower climate impact and the same or even better clinical properties than other alternatives, say the researchers. If desflurane had been completely replaced by sevoflurane, the global climate impact of anesthetic gases could have been reduced by a further 69%. "While it is positive that several of the world's largest countries are able to offer anesthesia and surgery to meet the health care needs of their populations, it is also worrying that they are often choosing to use desflurane.

If more people stopped using it, we could halve climate emissions and still double the number of anesthetics in the world," says Bentzer. The researchers point out that increased use of anesthetic gas is not necessarily a bad thing; it may, for example, mean that more women are put under general anesthesia during difficult births or that more patients undergo surgery for cancer and fractures. "The reason for our research team's engagement in studying the climate and environmental impact of health care is that we want an evidence-based change in health care, not the implementation of placard politics.

This requires taking a holistic view and looking at the overall climate impact of potential changes in health care. "We want to contribute knowledge so that we can reduce the risk of health care itself leading to a deterioration in people's health due to increased climate or environmental impact," says Bentzer. More information: Adrien Talbot et al, Greenhouse gas impact from medical emissions of halogenated anaesthetic agents: a sales-based estimate, The Lancet Planetary Health (2025).

DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00027-0 Journal information: The Lancet Planetary Health Provided by Lund University.