Clean Air Health Benefits from Climate Change Mitigation Action George D. Thurston

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1 Clean Air Health Benefits from Climate Change Mitigation Action George D. Thurston Professor NYU School of Medicine New York, NY USA

2 Overview The Health Effects of Air Pollution The Clean Air Health Co-Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation Measures Climate Mitigation Policy Implications

3 POTENTIAL HUMAN HEALTH IMPACTS OF INHALED AIR POLLUTION Pulmonary Cardiovascular Developmental Nervous System Immunological Cancer

4 RESPIRATORY EFFECTS CARDIAC EFFECTS

5 People Most Affected by Ambient PM Air Pollution Older Adults with Pre-Existing Disease (e.g., Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, COPD, such as emphysema) Children, especially infants, and those with Asthma. Healthy adults who work or exercise outdoors. Persons with inadequate health care, such as the poor and working poor.

6 Mortality Risk of Long-Term Fine PM Decreases with Lowered Exposure (Pope, Burnett, Thun, Calle, Krewski, Ito, and Thurston) (JAMA, 2002) 6

7 ACS Cohort Concentration Response Curves for Source-Related PM 2.5 (µg/m 3 ) COAL POLLUTION IS MOST CVD TOXIC PER POUND Ischemic Mortality Hazard Ratio Ischemic Mortality Hazard Ratio Thurston et al. EHP 2015 (

8 Why Fossil Fuel Combustion Particles May be More Toxic Humans are now exposed to fossil fuel combustion particles that the lung did not evolve to cope with. These particles have different sizes, different physiochemical characteristics, and deposit deeper in the lung than more natural particles (e.g., wind blown soil).

9 Combustion- Derived Nanoparticles Induce Lung and Heart Inflammation (Duffin, 2007)

10 GBD Study Updated with Improved PM2.5 Effect Estimates <- Household PM

11 The Quandary of Climate Change Policy: The Carrot or the Stick? (Thurston, Nature Climate Change, 2013) The limitations of climate change disaster fears as a policy action motivator are: the most severe potential effects of climate change are decades away Society tends to discount things in the future. most of the climate benefits of mitigation are not local Those investing in mitigation receive little more climate benefit than those who do nothing

12 The Quandary of Climate Change Policy: The Carrot or the Stick? (Thurston, Nature Climate Change, 2013) In contrast, the mitigation associated clean air health benefits (and their monetary valuations) are: more immediate in time local to the places that do the improvement occurring primarily in the regions and nations that take these steps to mitigate CO 2 (See Figure 1) Clean air health better motivates climate mitigation action

13 PM Cleanup Co-Benefits of Climate Mitigation Can Be Large if Fossil Fuel Combustion Reduced (West et al., Nature Climate Change, 2013) 13

14 The Recent Europe s Dark Cloud Report Has Documented the Premature Deaths that Could be Avoided by Cleaner Air After Eliminating Coal 14 [Health and Environment Alliance]

15 Research Conclusions There are significant adverse mortality and morbidity effects from air pollution (especially PM 2.5 ) Fossil fuel combustion, especially coal combustion and diesel soot, are among the most toxic PM 2.5 air pollution components Controlling fossil fuel emissions (especially Coal Combustion) will have the greatest climate mitigation health co-benefits. Just scrubbing out CO 2 will not get these air quality health benefits, if other pollutants are not removed.

16 Climate Public Health Take Home Message The health and science community has a vital role to play in accelerating progress to tackle climate change (as it did with public sanitation and smoking) Key needs: Communication about the public health opportunities from fossil fuel reductions; Ensuring mitigation strengthens public health.

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