“Kills 5 million people a year”: the danger of air pollution is named

Of the more than 8 million deaths worldwide from outdoor air pollution, 61% are linked to fossil fuels, a new study finds. Air pollution from fossil fuels kills 5 million people worldwide each year, far exceeding previous estimates, according to the largest study of its kind.

The stark figures, released ahead of the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai, will increase pressure on world leaders to take action, The Guardian writes. Among the decisions they must make at the UN conference will be whether to agree for the first time to a gradual “phase-out” of fossil fuels.

Studies have shown that switching from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy would save many lives from air pollution and help fight global warming. However, mortality estimates have varied widely so far, The Guardian notes.

A new modeling study suggests that air pollution from fossil fuel use in industry, power generation and transport is responsible for 5.1 million preventable deaths a year worldwide. These results were published in BMJ.

Fossil fuels accounted for 61% of the estimated 8.3 million deaths worldwide due to outdoor air pollution from all sources in 2019.

New estimates of fossil fuel-attributable mortality are higher than most previously reported values, suggesting that phasing out fossil fuels may have a greater impact on fossil-attributable mortality than previously thought.

“Our results suggest that a global phase-out of fossil fuels would bring greater health benefits, much greater than most previous studies have indicated,” the global team of researchers wrote in the BMJ. “These data support the increased share of clean, renewable energy advocated by the UN as part of its 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and 2050 climate neutrality goals.”

Outdoor air pollution is a leading environmental health risk factor for disease and death, but few global studies link deaths to specific sources of air pollution, and their results vary widely.

To address this problem, an international team of researchers from the UK, US, Germany, Spain and Cyprus used a new model to estimate deaths due to air pollution associated with fossil fuels and to estimate the potential health benefits of policies replacing fossil fuels with clean, renewable sources. energy.

They estimated excess mortality using data from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Study, as well as fine particulate matter and population data from a NASA satellite, as well as atmospheric chemistry, aerosols and relative risk modeling for 2019.

The results show that in 2019, 8.3 million deaths worldwide were caused by fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) in ambient air, of which 61% (5.1 million) were attributed to fossil fuels.

“Significant reductions in air pollutant emissions, especially through phasing out fossil fuels, can have significant health benefits. The results show that the mortality burden associated with air pollution from fossil fuel use is higher than most previous estimates,” the researchers wrote.

They say one reason their model produces higher estimates than most previous studies is that it is based solely on studies of outdoor air pollution. Uncertainty remained, but given the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal of climate neutrality by 2050, “replacing fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy would have huge co-benefits for public health and the climate.”