Cleaner Air and Reduced Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Save Millions of Lives
The researchers predict that 100 million premature deaths due to respiratory illnesses linked to air pollution could be prevented by cutting greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent between now and 2050, a target goal that is attracting serious support in many international discussions about global warming.
Conversely, the researchers warn that if governments continue their current energy policies and fail to make the necessary changes, premature deaths from air pollution—complicated by other factors such as population growth, increased urbanization, and an aging global population—will increase 30 percent by 2050 in the more affluent nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and double in poorer, non-OECD countries.
The economic gains derived from cleaner air and keeping more working-age people alive—net gains that could be as high as 5 percent of GDP by 2050 in countries such as India and China—could help to offset the cost of climate policies and provide extra incentives for developing countries to participate more fully in climate treaty negotiations, such as those scheduled to take place in Copenhagen in December.
"The local air pollution benefits of climate mitigation policies provide an additional economic incentive for countries to participate in a global agreement to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions," said Johannes Bollen, one of the authors of the research report, in an interview with the Guardian.
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