Air pollution due to the burning fossil fuel turned out to be a global killer over a million people in 2017 alone, and more than half of deaths fall on coal burning. This is reported in the article published in the journal Nature Communications.
The main factor of exposure to the human body by the environment is a long-term presence in the air of solid particles of a diameter of 2.5 micrometer (PM2.5). In the new work, researchers conducted the most complete accounting of sources of PM2.5 in 21, 204 countries and 200 subnational regions, given the 24 global imitation models of chemical transfer in an atmosphere developed on the basis of satellite monitoring data.
It turned out that the industry, the production of energy and the housing sector most contribute to pollution and associated mortality. At the same time, the elimination of emissions from fossil fuel burning will significantly reduce (more than a quarter) global burden of diseases associated with the annual impact of PM2.5, and more than half of this contribution accounted for coal burning.
In general, 1.05 million deaths could be avoided in 2017 due to the refusal to burn fossil fuels, which accounts for 27.3 percent of the overall impact of PM2.5 on the health of the world’s population. As for other dominant global sources, then emissions from the residential sector (kitchen stoves and home heating) account for 0.74 million deaths, from industry – 0.45 million deaths, and from energy – 0.39 million deaths.
How to make the authors of scientific work, in regions with a large anthropogenic contribution, as a rule, there is the highest mortality rate, and this serves as proof of significant benefits from replacing traditional energy sources for public health.