Thousands of annual heat-related deaths could be potentially
avoided in major US cities if global temperatures are limited to the Paris
Climate Goals compared with current climate commitments, according to a new
study published today in Science Advances.
The research is highly relevant to decisions about
strengthening national climate actions in 2020, when the next round of climate
pledges is due in 2020. It was led by
the University of Bristol, together with experts from likes of the University
of Oxford, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and was
co-authored by Will Roberts, a Senior Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow at
Northumbria University who specialises in understanding how climate has changed
through history.
The Paris Agreement aims at keeping global average
temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with an ambition of
limiting warming to 1.5°C. Nations in the agreement are required to submit
their climate pledges every five years.
Climate scientists and epidemiologists from the UK and the
US combined observed temperature and mortality data with climate projections of
different warmer worlds, to estimate changes in the number of heat-related
deaths for 15 major US cities.
Their findings showed that limiting warming to the lower
Paris Climate Goal could avoid 110 to 2,720 annual heat-related deaths during
extreme heat-events, depending on the city.
This is substantially more beneficial than limiting warming
to the upper Paris Climate Goal, which could avoid 70 to 1,980 deaths per city.
Lead author, Dr Eunice Lo from the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute, said: “If global temperature rise is reduced to 1.5°C from where we
are headed, the cities’ exposure to extreme heat would decrease and up to
thousands of annual heat-related deaths could be avoided per city.
“Strengthened climate actions are needed as they would
substantially benefit public health in the United States.”
Co-lead author, Professor Dann Mitchell, also from the University
of Bristol’s Cabot Institute, added: “We are no longer counting the impact of
climate in change in terms of degrees of global warming, but rather in terms of
number of lives lost.
“Our study brings together a wide range of physical and
social complexities to show just how human lives could be impacted if we do not
cut carbon emissions. Considering the US citizens that will be adversely
affected by increasing global temperatures, we strongly encourage them to hold
their politicians to account.”
The Trump administration announced US withdrawal from the
Paris Agreement in 2017. However, the effective withdrawal date is not until
2020, and states including New York and California are still committed to
achieving the US climate goal within the agreement.
Dr Roberts from Northumbria University, a co-author on the study
said: “We make clear the human costs of our action, or inaction, in addressing
climate change: these are costs we can all understand.”
Dr Roberts is a climate and ice sheet scientist in
Northumbria University’s renowned Cold and Palaeo Environment research group.
Researchers in this group specialise in the study of past climate and
environment, and ice, snow and permafrost. They are currently undertaking a
number of major studies, including playing a leading UK role in the £20million
UK-US research collaboration to establish how quickly Antarctica’s massive
Thwaites Glacier could collapse.
Paper:
A draft of the paper is available on request. ‘Increasing
mitigation ambition to meet the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal avoids
substantial heat-related mortality in US cities’ by Y. T. E. Lo, D. M.
Mitchell, A. Gasparrini, A. M. Vicedo-Cabrera, K. L. Ebi, P. C. Frumhoff, R. J.
Millar, W. Roberts, F. Sera, S. Sparrow, P. Uhe and G. Williams in Science Advances.
