New Delhi, A new study suggests that climate action limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius could prevent over 13.5 million deaths due to air pollution by 2050, mainly in low and middle-income countries.
Researchers found that the distribution of health benefits across countries depends on how climate mitigation is shared globally.
The analysis, published in The Lancet Global Health journal, shows that under a least-cost approach, low and middle-income countries shoulder a significant share of the mitigation effort but reap the largest air quality benefits.
However, wealthier nations bearing more of the climate mitigation effort under an 'equity-based approach' could result in low and middle-income countries paying less, but may avert nearly four million fewer premature deaths.
Co-lead author Mark Budolfson said, 'We show that there is a difficult tension between international distributive climate justice and the goal of saving lives via air pollution co-benefits.'
The study modelled three scenarios, one through least cost, one that shifts mitigation burden towards higher-income countries, and a third one identical to international equity, but with LMICs also reducing air pollution to levels that occur in the least-cost scenario.
The third scenario emerged as the most favourable one, 'delivering both the fairness benefits of shifting climate costs to wealthier nations and the full life-saving potential of cleaner air in the developing world.'
