Posted Dated : Wednesday September 25, 2013, 12:00:00
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions should improve air quality and thereby save millions of people’s lives by the end of the century, new simulations find.
<!-- Para 1 -->Burning fossil fuels emits both climate-warming gases and other air pollutants such as particulate matter. Greenhouse gases also contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone, the main component of smog. Because particulate matter and ozone can cause heart and lung disease, researchers think that reducing greenhouse gases would improve public health.
<!-- Para 2 -->J. Jason West of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and colleagues simulated climate and air quality through 2100. In a simulation with reductions in fossil fuel use, the model found 2.2 million premature deaths per year could be avoided by the beginning of the next century, compared with a simulation without climate change mitigation.
<!-- Para 3 -->The greenhouse gas cuts also make economic sense, the researchers say. The benefit of reducing pollution-related deaths, compared with the costs of mitigation, equals $50 to $380 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, the team reports September 22 in Nature Climate Change.