Abstract
Despite low per capita emissions, with over a billion population, India is pivotal for climate change mitigation globally, ranking as the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. We linked a previously published multidimensional population projection with emission projections from an integrated assessment model to quantify the localised (i.e. state-level) health benefits from reduced ambient fine particulate matter in India under global climate change mitigation scenarios in line with the Paris Agreement targets and national scenarios for maximum feasible air quality control. We incorporated assumptions about future demographic, urbanisation and epidemiological trends and accounted for model feedbacks. Our results indicate that compared to a business-as-usual scenario, pursuit of aspirational climate change mitigation targets can avert up to 8.0 million premature deaths and add up to 0.7 years to life expectancy (LE) at birth due to cleaner air by 2050. Combining aggressive climate change mitigation efforts with maximum feasible air quality control can add 1.6 years to LE. Holding demographic change constant, we find that climate change mitigation and air quality control will contribute slightly more to increases in LE in urban areas than in rural areas and in states with lower socio-economic development.
Highlights
Socio-economic development in India has been accompanied by gains in life expectancy (LE)and improvements in a range of health outcomes over the past decades (KC et al 2018).these developments have occurred in parallel with growing environmental challenges, including rising CO2 emissions and deterioration of air quality (GBD MAPS Working Group 2018, Dey et al 2012)
Our results indicate that compared to a business-as-usual scenario, pursuit of aspirational climate change mitigation targets can avert up to 8.0 million premature deaths and add up to 0.7 years to life expectancy (LE) at birth due to cleaner air by 2050
2010-2050 LE at birth for both females and males in India is projected to increase under all scenarios
Summary
Improvements in a range of health outcomes over the past decades (KC et al 2018) These developments have occurred in parallel with growing environmental challenges, including rising CO2 emissions and deterioration of air quality (GBD MAPS Working Group 2018, Dey et al 2012). Residential energy use has been identified as the dominant contributing sector in India (Purohit et al 2019, Conibear et al 2018a, Lelieveld et al 2015). Both short-term and long-term exposure to PM2.5 have been associated with adverse health impacts that can occur even at very low levels (WHO 2016). In India, air pollution was ranked as the second most important contributor to mortality and morbidity in
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