Curbing air pollution could prevent millions of deaths in North America over next 50 years

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Curbing climate change and improving air quality could provide greater health benefits in our lifetime than previously thought, potentially preventing millions of deaths and hospitalizations in the U.S. alone during the next half-century, new research suggests.

The paper from a team at Duke University in Durham, N.C., was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PNAS on Monday. It is based on an analysis of more than 40 studies on air pollution and human health, coupled with climate modelling and simulations available through NASA.

The researchers found that, over the next 50 years, limiting global warming to no more than 2 C could prevent roughly 4.5 million premature deaths and several million more hospitalizations and emergency room visits across the U.S. — when compared to a scenario where climate change is left "largely unmitigated."

Those rapid, short-term benefits stem primarily from air quality improvements and outweigh any associated costs, the researchers wrote. They estimated this could lead to "tens of trillions of dollars" in benefits from avoided deaths.

Lead author Drew Shindell, a professor in the division of earth and climate sciences at Duke University, said he was surprised the results "were just so enormous."

"We think of our air as being relatively clean in North America," he said. "And so one of the things I think is so incredible is how many people are still affected by our air quality, even though it's so much better than it was decades ago."

The striking predictions, according to Shindell, suggest human actions to curb air pollution now can make a difference in both the long and short term.

"Fewer children going to the hospital with asthma attacks, fewer elderly people dying of respiratory illnesses or heart attacks," he said.

"I think most anywhere that takes action to mitigate climate change can expect to see enormous benefits very, very rapidly … if the whole world co-operates, then of course, we also solve the climate crisis."

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Climate change mitigation, the new paper noted, "involves a global transition to low carbon energy, energy efficiency, low demand for carbon-intensive goods and services, and a reduction in emissions of non-CO2 climate-altering pollutants."

The research was published while global leaders are gathering in Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit, which has a key goal to "secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach."

The Conference of Parties (COP), as it's known, meets every year and is the global decision-making body set up in the early 1990s to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and subsequent climate agreements.