Cutting Greenhouse Pollutants Could Directly Save
Millions of Lives Worldwide
Tackling climate change by reducing carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse emissions will have major direct health benefits in addition
to reducing the risk of climate change, especially in low-income
countries, according to a series of six papers appearing on, Nov. 25 in
the British journal The Lancet.
The studies, three of them coauthored by Kirk R. Smith, professor of
global environmental health and one coauthored by Michael Jerrett,
associate professor of environmental health sciences, both at University
of California, Berkeley, use case studies to demonstrate the co-benefits
of tackling climate change in four sectors: electricity generation,
household energy use, transportation, and food and agriculture.
"Policymakers need to know that if they exert their efforts in
certain directions, they can obtain important public health benefits as
well as climate benefits," said Smith, who was the principal
investigator in the United States for the overall research effort.
"Climate change threatens us all, but its impact will likely be greatest
on the poorest communities in every country. Thus, it has been called
the most regressive tax in human history. Carefully choosing how we
reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have the added benefit of reducing
global health inequities."
Each study in the series examines the health implications in both
high- and low-income countries of actions designed to reduce the release
of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. Climate change due
to emission of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel energy sources causes
air pollution by increasing ground-level ozone and concentrations of
fine particulate matter.
The studies were commissioned by the NIEHS, part of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), in part to help inform discussions next
month at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen.
The NIEHS is one of the key sponsors of the international event.
"These papers demonstrate there are clear and substantive improvements
for health if we choose the right mitigation strategies for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions," said Birnbaum. "We now have real life
examples of how we can save the environment, reduce air pollution and
decrease related health effects; it's really a win-win situation for
everyone."
A case study led by Smith on the health and climate benefits from a
potential 150-million-stove program in India from 2010-2020 gives the
largest co-benefit of any examined in the six papers. Smith has shown
that providing low-emission stove technologies in poor countries that
currently rely on solid fuel household stoves to cook and heat their
homes is a very cost-effective climate change linkage. The 10-year
program could prevent 2 million premature deaths in India, he said, in
addition to reducing greenhouse pollution by hundreds of millions of
tons.
The paper coauthored by Jerrett contains analysis of 18 years of data on
the long-term health effects of black carbon -- the first study of its
kind ever conducted. The study followed 352,000 people in 66 U.S. cities
and was conducted by a team of U.S. and Canadian researchers led by
Jerrett and Smith. Black carbon is a short-lived greenhouse pollutant
which, along with ozone, is responsible for a significant proportion of
global warming. Unlike CO2, these short-lived greenhouse pollutants
exert significant direct impacts on health. Also, because they are
short-lived, emission controls are almost immediately reflected in
changes in warming.
"Combustion-related air pollution is estimated to be responsible for
nearly 2.5 million premature deaths annually around the world and also
for a significant portion of greenhouse warming," said Smith. "These
studies provide the kind of concrete information needed to choose
actions that efficiently reduce this health burden as well as reduce the
threat of climate change."
Funding for The Lancet Health and Climate Change series was provided by
the NIEHS and U.K. partners including The Academy of Medical Sciences,
U.K. Department of Health, Economic and Social Research Council, London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, National Institute for Health
Research, Royal College of Physicians, and Wellcome Trust. The air
pollution study also had funding from the Health Effects Institute,
California Air Resources Board and Clean Air Task Force.
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