Climate change set to increase air pollution deaths by hundreds of thousands by 2100

Climate change is set to increase the amount of ground-level ozone and fine particle pollution we breathe, which leads to lung disease, heart conditions, and stroke. Less rain and more heat means this pollution will stay in the air for longer, creating more health problems.

A boy plays cricket among smoke in Karachi. Deaths from
air pollution across the globe will increase as climate change accelerates. 

Our research, published in Nature Climate Change, found that if climate change continues unabated, it will cause about 60,000 extra deaths globally each year by 2030, and 260,000 deaths annually by 2100, as a result of the impact of these changes on pollution.

This is the most comprehensive study to date on the effects of climate change on global air quality and health. Researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and New Zealand between them used nine different global chemistry-climate models.

Most models showed an increase in likely deaths – the clearest signal yet of the harm climate change will do to air quality and human health, adding to the millions of people who die from air pollution every year.

Read the piece on The Conversation by an Atmospheric Scientist with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Guang Zeng and an Associate Professor with the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering art the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Jason West - “Climate change set to increase air pollution deaths by hundreds of thousands by 2100.”