Assessing the health benefits of urban air pollution reductions associated with climate change mitigation (2000-2020): Santiago, São Paulo, México City, and New York City

Abstract

To investigate the potential local health benefits of adopting greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies, we develop scenarios of GHG mitigation for México City, México; Santiago, Chile; São Paulo, Brazil; and New York, New York, USA using air pollution health impact factors appropriate to each city. We estimate that the adoption of readily available technologies to lessen fossil fuel emissions over the next two decades in these four cities alone will reduce particulate matter and ozone and avoid approximately 64,000 (95% confidence interval [CI] 18,000-116,000) premature deaths (including infant deaths), 65,000 (95% CI 22,000-108,000) chronic bronchitis cases, and 46 million (95% CI 35-58 million) person-days of work loss or other restricted activity. These findings illustrate that GHG mitigation can provide considerable local air pollution-related public health benefits to countries that choose to abate GHG emissions by reducing fossil fuel combustion.