Acting now to reduce fossil fuel emissions will result in improved air quality and dramatic reductions in pollution-related deaths, illnesses and economic losses across the United States by 2030, a new study by scientists at Duke University, NASA and Columbia University shows.
Acting now to reduce fossil fuel emissions will result in improved air quality and dramatic reductions in pollution-related deaths, illnesses and economic losses across the United States by 2030, a new study by scientists at Duke University, NASA and Columbia University shows.
About 4.5 million premature deaths, 1.4 million hospitalizations and emergency room visits, 300 million lost workdays due to heat exposure or pollution-related respiratory illnesses, and 440 million tons of crop losses could be prevented nationwide if governments worldwide agree to immediately begin reducing emissions to levels needed to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 2°C through the end of the century.
Roughly two-thirds of those benefits would be realized even if only the U.S. acted to reduce emissions, the analysis shows.
“These benefits outweigh the costs of transitioning toward a completely net zero carbon economy, even in the very first decade,” said Drew Shindell, Nicholas Distinguished Professor of Earth Science at Duke, who led the research.
Read more at: Duke University
