An additional 1,000 people will die in the U.S. from respiratory illness and asthma for every one degree Celsius of global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions, according to a study released by a Stanford University professor.
The report, by Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, is the first to track the health effects of carbon dioxide and predicts that, worldwide, emissions could be responsible for upward of 20,000 deaths per year per additional degree Celsius.
The report was released last week, and is drawing significant interest due to the recent decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to deny the state of California a waiver that would allow it to impose it’s own tailpipe emissions standards that would require faster, deeper cuts in emissions levels than the newly approved federal standards.
In making its decision the EPA argued that there were no studies focused on carbon dioxide’s effects on health and that California has no special circumstances that would warrant tougher regulations.
The new study, which was unavailable for review by the EPA, suggests otherwise.
Jacobson’s research, which will be published in Geophysical Research Letters, used a complex computer model and data on carbon emissions from the U.S. EPA to determine that the impact of carbon dioxide emissions is worse in places that are populous and polluted.
According to Jacobson, California–12% of the county’s population and six of the 10 most polluted cities–would account for 30% of the increased death toll.
"So it was pretty clear … that climate change was affecting California’s health disproportionately to its population," Jacobson said.
"This is a cause and effect relationship, not just a correlation," Jacobson said. "The study is the first specifically to isolate carbon dioxide’s effect from that of other global-warming agents and to find quantitatively that chemical and meteorological changes due to carbon dioxide itself increase mortality due to increased ozone, particles and carcinogens in the air."
Jacobson observed that higher temperatures due to carbon dioxide increased the chemical rate of ozone production in urban areas. And he noticed that increased water vapor due to carbon dioxide-induced higher temperatures boosted chemical ozone production even more in urban areas.
"Ultimately, you inhale a greater abundance of deleterious chemicals due to carbon dioxide and the climate change associated with it, and the link appears quite solid," he said. "The logical next step is to reduce carbon dioxide: That would reduce its warming effect and improve the health of people in the U.S. and around the world who are currently suffering from air pollution health problems associated with it."
It is likely that Jacobson’s study will be cited in the lawsuit that California filed last week against the EPA in an attempt to have the waiver decision reversed. California was joined in that suit by numerous environmental groups and 15 other states that wish to follow California’s lead in imposing tougher emissions standards.
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