BFF-04 Health savings outweigh costs of limiting global warming: study

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BFF-04

ENVIRONMENT-CLIMATE-WARMING-HEALTH

Health savings outweigh costs of limiting global warming: study

PARIS, March 3, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The estimated cost of measures to limit
Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions can be more than offset by reductions
in deaths and disease from air pollution, researchers said on Saturday.

It would cost $22.1 trillion (17.9 trillion euros) to $41.6 trillion
between 2020 and 2050 for the world to hold average global warming under two
degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a team projected in The Lancet
Planetary Health journal.

For the lower, aspirational limit of 1.5 C, the cost would be between
$39.7 trillion and $56.1 trillion, they estimated.

But air pollution deaths could be reduced by 21-27 percent to about 100
million between 2020 and 2050 under the 2 C scenario, the team estimated, and
by 28-32 percent to about 90 million at 1.5 C.

“Depending on the strategy used to mitigate climate change, estimates
suggest that the health savings from reduced air pollution could be between
1.4-2.5 times greater than the costs of climate change mitigation, globally,”
they wrote.

Health costs from air pollution include medical treatment, patient care,
and lost productivity.

The countries likely to see the biggest health savings were air pollution-
ridden India and China, said the researchers, who used computer models to
project future emissions, the costs of different scenarios for curbing them,
and the tally in pollution-related deaths.

“The health savings are exclusively those related to curbing air
pollution,” study co-author Anil Markandya of the Basque Centre for Climate
Change in Spain told AFP.

“Other health benefits are not included, which of course makes our figures
underestimates of the total benefits.”

The costs of limiting warming, Markandya explained, included higher taxes
on fossil fuels like oil and coal, which in turn raise the costs of
production.

The world’s nations agreed on the 2 C limit in Paris in 2015, and
undertook voluntary greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.

These pledges, even if they are met, place the world on a 3 C trajectory,
scientists say.

To date, the average global temperature is thought to have increased by 1
C since the Industrial Revolution.

“We hope that the large health co-benefits we have estimated… might help
policymakers move towards adopting more ambitious climate policies and
measures to reduce air pollution,” said Markandya.

Air pollution from fossil fuel emissions, particularly fine particulate
matter and ozone, has been linked to lung and heart disease, strokes, and
cancer.

BSS/AFP/SSS/0908 hrs