Journal
CLIMATIC CHANGE
Volume 150, Issue 3-4, Pages 391-402Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10584-018-2274-3
Keywords
Climate change; Mortality; Temperature; Projections
Funding
- Medical Research Council-UK [MR/M022625/1]
- Natural Environment Research Council UK [NE/R009384/1]
- Australian National Health and Medical Research Council [APP1107107]
- Ministry of Education of Spain [PRX12/00515]
- Czech Science Foundation [16-22000S]
- Research Council for Health, Academy of Finland [266314]
- National Health Research Institutes of Taiwan [NHRI-EM-106-SP03]
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [83587101]
- Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S-14) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency
- Global Research Lab through the National Research Foundation of Korea - Ministry of Science, ICT and future planning [K21004000001-10A0500-00710]
- National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Environmental Change and Health
- German Federal Ministry for the Environment [16_II_148_Global_A_IMPACT]
- German Federal Ministry for Education and Research [01LS1613A]
- MRC [MR/M022625/1, MR/R013349/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- NERC [NE/R009554/1, NE/R009384/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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The Paris Agreement binds all nations to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change, with the commitment to hold warming well below 2 degrees C in global mean temperature (GMT), relative to pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. The 1.5 degrees 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 degrees C) and more extreme GMT increases (3 and 4 degrees C), and under the assumption of no changes in demographic distribution and vulnerability. Our results suggest that limiting warming below 2 degrees C could prevent large increases in temperature-related mortality in most regions worldwide. The comparison between 1.5 and 2 degrees 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.
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