21 March 2018 10:24 am
(Daily Mail), 19 March 2018 - As many as 153 million deaths linked to air pollution worldwide this century could be prevented if governments speed up timetables for reducing fossil fuel emissions.
That is the claim of a new study which looked at the numbers of people in urban areas whose lives could be saved if temperature increases are limited to 1.5°C (2.7°F).
The study is the first to project these numbers on a city by city basis, in 154 of the world’s largest urban areas. In New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Mexico City and Sao Paolo alone, between 320,000 and 120,000 premature deaths would be prevented in each city.
Researchers say the study shows why politicians and governments should act swiftly to bring down carbon emissions.
Researchers from Duke University ran computer simulations of future emissions of carbon dioxide and associated pollutants, such as ozone and particulate matter, under three different scenarios. These scenarios simulated an overall increase in emissions resulting in warming of 2°C (3.6°F) by 2100, accelerated reductions of carbon emissions, and even further reductions limiting atmospheric warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F).
They matched this data with computer models, based on decades of public health data on air-pollution related deaths, to work out which areas would be the hardest hit by global warming.