Cutting Carbon Pollution Quickly Would Save About 74 Million Lives, Study Finds

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/ [login to see] /cutting-carbon-pollution-quickly-would-save-millions-of-lives-study-finds
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions quickly would save tens of millions of lives worldwide, a new study finds. It's the latest indication that climate change is deadly to humans, and that the benefits of transitioning to a cleaner economy could be profound.

In recent years, the connection between a hotter planet and human death and disease has become clearer, thanks to a series of research papers. A study published in 2021 found that about a third of heat-related deaths worldwide can be directly attributed to human-caused climate change. A 2020 Lancet report warned that climate change is the biggest global public health threat of the century.

But those findings have not been factored into one of the three major computer models that scientists, economists and the federal government use to calculate the societal costs of carbon emissions. That means economists and policymakers may be underestimating the cost of climate change to human life.

"One key takeaway is that there are a significant number of lives that can be saved by reducing emissions," says R. Daniel Bressler, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University who is the author of the new study, published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications.