Advertisement
Science
ChinaScience

Air pollution from fossil fuels linked to about 5 million deaths a year, study finds

  • China was found to have the highest death toll related to air pollution, followed by India
  • Scientists have urged countries to phase out fossil fuels ‘to improve health and save lives’

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
2
The latest study “provides new evidence to motivate rapid fossil fuel phase-out”, according to the lead author. Photo: AP
Holly Chik

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources could prevent around 5 million extra deaths per year from air pollution worldwide – most of them in China and India – a new study has found.

The scientists who carried out the research urged countries to commit to cutting the use of fossil fuels at Cop28, the UN climate summit under way in Dubai. Fossil fuels were linked to about 60 per cent of the more than 8 million deaths in 2019 worldwide that were attributable to fine particles (PM2.5) and ozone (O3), according to the global study.
It found that China had the highest death toll related to air pollution, with 2.44 million deaths per year, followed by India at 2.18 million. India and China are the world’s top two most populous countries and both are also leading consumers of fossil fuels.

07:25

Cop28 prepares temperature check on climate at Dubai meeting

Cop28 prepares temperature check on climate at Dubai meeting

“Phasing out fossil fuels is deemed to be an effective intervention to improve health and save lives as part [of] the United Nations’ goal of climate neutrality by 2050,” the team wrote in an article published in peer-reviewed journal The BMJ on Wednesday.

“Ambient air pollution would no longer be a leading environmental health risk factor if the use of fossil fuels were superseded by equitable access to clean sources of renewable energy,” the scientists from institutes in Britain, Germany, Spain and the United States said.

According to the International Energy Agency, 29 per cent of electricity worldwide was generated by renewables in 2020. China is expected to account for nearly 55 per cent of global additions of renewable power capacity in 2023 and 2024.

This year is meanwhile on track to be the hottest on record, with global extreme weather events including droughts, heatwaves, flooding and torrential rain claiming hundreds of thousands of lives around the world.

At the UN Climate Change Conference, which began on Thursday, countries are expected to take stock of progress on the Paris Agreement, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Advertisement