Initiative Overview
From the Philippines to Finland, Floro Cubelo has seen how access to health care can make all the difference. Realizing the impact of his own greenhouse gas emissions from long flights home, this international nurse became compelled to lead climate action efforts through the lens of sustainable development goals and health policy.
Cubelo grew up in a low-income community in the Philippines, where health care was often inaccessible. After moving to Finland to work as a nurse, he witnessed how climate change—particularly heat waves—exacerbated health issues for vulnerable patients. These experiences inspired him to pursue advanced degrees in public health and nursing while advocating for climate-conscious policies in health care.
Project Implementation
While pursuing his Master of Public Health degree, Cubelo had an awakening when reading Health Care Without Harm materials. He realized his own international flights to visit family generated staggering carbon emissions—one roundtrip from Manila to Helsinki produced more CO₂ than the annual footprint of individuals in 72 countries. This revelation drove him to partner with Health Care Without Harm-Europe and adopt resources from the Nurses Climate Challenge. He began delivering tailored presentations about climate health impacts to diverse audiences, from vulnerable patients suffering heat-related illnesses in Finland to international colleagues at CleanMed-Europe conferences. At Oulu University of Applied Sciences where he teaches, Cubelo integrated climate modules into nursing education while encouraging fellow transnational nurses to mitigate their travel emissions through tree-planting initiatives.
Collaborators
Cubelo’s efforts gained traction through strategic partnerships. He worked closely with Health Care Without Harm-Europe to access climate advocacy tools and aligned with the Nurses Climate Challenge for educational resources. Through his leadership role in the Filipino Nurses Association-Nordic (FiNAN), he mobilized hundreds of international nurses around climate action. At Oulu University, he collaborated with faculty to weave climate health into nursing curricula, ensuring future generations of nurses would graduate with environmental competency.
Challenges and Solutions
The initiative faced several obstacles. The carbon-intensive nature of international nurse mobility presented an ethical dilemma, which Cubelo addressed by promoting carbon offset programs and advocating for more sustainable staffing models. When devastating typhoons hit his native Philippines in 2020, he confronted the immediate human toll of climate change by establishing a FiNAN disaster relief fund. Within Finland’s healthcare system, he overcame inertia around climate education by demonstrating how heat waves were already impacting patient outcomes, using Nurses Climate Challenge data to make his case compelling to administrators.
Results and Impact
Cubelo’s multifaceted approach yielded significant results. His educational outreach impacted hundreds of healthcare professionals across Europe, while his university courses created Finland’s first generation of climate-conscious nursing graduates. The disaster relief fund provided critical aid to Philippine communities ravaged by climate-amplified storms. Perhaps most importantly, he helped shift professional norms, inspiring nurses to view planetary health as core to their ethical mandate. “Our planet is also our patient,” Cubelo frequently reminds colleagues, framing environmental stewardship as an extension of nursing’s healing mission.
Advice for Nurses Starting Similar Initiatives
For nurses embarking on climate work, Cubelo emphasizes starting with available resources like the Nurses Climate Challenge rather than reinventing the wheel. He stresses the importance of framing climate issues through a health lens when speaking to medical audiences, using patient stories and clinical data to make abstract concepts concrete. “Nurses are the most trusted professionals—we must use that credibility to advocate for change,” he notes. Cubelo encourages nurses to examine their own environmental footprints while pushing for systemic reforms, modeling the principle that healthcare must heal both people and the planet that sustains them.
