Daniel Bressler (Daniel Bressler) from Columbia University revealed the number of premature deaths associated with anthropogenic carbon emissions into the atmosphere. It turned out that for the entire current century, growing greenhouse gas emissions can lead to death tens of millions of people around the world. This is reported in a press release on Phys.org.
Although recent studies show that climate change can cause millions of premature deaths, the current assessments of the social value of carbon are based on obsolete studies that do not include these forecasts. The social value of carbon is the costs estimated in dollars that economists attribute each ton of the thrown in carbon, based on the estimated future damage that these emissions may apply.
Bressler rated the impact of climate change on mortality based on several key public health studies, which evaluated the connection of premature deaths with high air temperature. At the same time, he did not take into account the consequences of storms, floods, hurricanes, promotion, infectious diseases and military conflicts. Suppose that emissions will continue to grow, the Bressler concluded that each ton of carbon, thrown over the current level, will cause 2.26 to 10 per minus of the 4th degree of additional deaths in the current century. That is, every 4434 tons of carbon dioxide, which are added over the level of emissions of 2020, accounts for one death. This is equivalent to carbon emissions from 3.5 US inhabitant.
Adding one million tons to the basic emissions of 2020 will lead to the death of 226 people. This one million tons corresponds to the annual emissions of 216 thousand cars, 115 thousand houses, 35 commercial airliners or 0.24 coal power plants.
By 2050, the average temperatures will be 2.1 degrees Celsius higher compared to the pre-industrial level. By 2100, the temperature rise will reach 4.1 degrees Celsius. Bressler predicts that in accordance with this scenario, climate change will lead to 83 million additional deaths by 2100. Most of the deaths will have to regions that are already the hottest and poor: Africa, Middle East and South Asia. Adding premature mortality to the social value of carbon gives $ 258 per ton.