Abstract
The Paris Agreement binds all nations to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change, with the commitment to “hold warming well below 2 °C in global mean temperature (GMT), relative to pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 °C”. The 1.5 °C limit constitutes an ambitious goal for which greater evidence on its benefits for health would help guide policy and potentially increase the motivation for action. Here we contribute to this gap with an assessment on the potential health benefits, in terms of reductions in temperature-related mortality, derived from the compliance to the agreed temperature targets, compared to more extreme warming scenarios. We performed a multi-region analysis in 451 locations in 23 countries with different climate zones, and evaluated changes in heat and cold-related mortality under scenarios consistent with the Paris Agreement targets (1.5 and 2 °C) and more extreme GMT increases (3 and 4 °C), and under the assumption of no changes in demographic distribution and vulnerability. Our results suggest that limiting warming below 2 °C could prevent large increases in temperature-related mortality in most regions worldwide. The comparison between 1.5 and 2 °C is more complex and characterized by higher uncertainty, with geographical differences that indicate potential benefits limited to areas located in warmer climates, where direct climate change impacts will be more discernible.
Highlights
The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015 under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is a turning point in negotiations to limit the potential damages of climate change
An agreement was reached on an ambitious long-term goal to limit warming from pre-industrial levels Bwell below^ a 2-°C increment in global mean temperature (GMT), and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C (UNFCCC 2015a; UNFCCC 2015b)
An increase from 1.5 to 2 °C in GMT could generate a substantial rise in heat-related mortality in most countries included in the analysis
Summary
The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015 under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is a turning point in negotiations to limit the potential damages of climate change. Most studies projecting the health risks of temperature extremes were performed in country-specific settings, mainly in high-income regions (Sanderson et al 2017). Our recent multi-country health impact projection analysis, the largest of its kind, investigated trends in temperature-related mortality under various greenhouse gas (GHG) emission trajectories (Gasparrini et al 2017). These studies offered little evidence on the comparative risks under warming scenarios based on specific GMT targets, such as those under the Paris Agreement. The present contribution addresses this research gap by assessing the excess mortality attributable to non-optimal temperature projected across various geographical and climate regions under climate change scenarios corresponding to 1.5 and 2 °C increases in GMT, and by comparing them with more extreme warming scenarios corresponding to 3 and 4 °C increases
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