Supplementary material to "Reducing future air pollution-related premature mortality over Europe by mitigating emissions: assessing an 80 % renewable energies scenario"

In the review the author highlights contemporary concepts about the relation between the air pollution by the particulate matter (PM) and human morbidity and mortality due to oncological diseases (OD). The author used materials of the articles indexed in the PubMed and RISC databases. The role of air pollution by PM as a risk factor of carcinogenesis in dependence on size, origin, chemical composition and concentration in air is discussed. PM of road-transport origin contains transitional metals acknowledged as most dangerous and is the result the operational wear of motor transport, road surface, and vehicle emissions. Long-term exposure to PM with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 increases risk of appearance of OD of different localization. Dose-dependent action of PM was established. Reduction in air pollution by PM is accompanied by decrease of premature mortality of population, including from OD, and it can be examined as a modifiable risk factor. The results of the meta-analysis of literature data about the economic damage, caused by morbidity and mortality from OD led to the conclusion that reduction in PM concentration is the most realistic and effective method to decrease these social and economic losses. The accumulated carcinogenic risk provides for the lifelong probability of the development of OD, which requires the active medical examination of workers after the curtailment of work with carcinogens for early diagnostics and treatment of OD. The important preventive measure is to decrease the level of air pollution independently on their initial concentration.

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Reducing future air pollution-related premature mortality over Europe by mitigating emissions: assessing an 80 % renewable energies scenario

10.5194/acp-2021-86 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Patricia Tarín-Carrasco ◽

Ulas Im ◽

Camilla Geels ◽

Laura Palacios-Peña ◽

Pedro Jiménez-Guerrero

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Fine Particles ◽

Respiratory Infections ◽

Premature Mortality ◽

Mortality Rates ◽

European Population ◽

Chronic Obstructive ◽

Future Scenarios ◽

Mitigation Scenario ◽

The Impact

Abstract. Worldwide air quality has worsened in the last decades as a consequence of increased anthropogenic emissions, in particular from the sector of power generation. The evidence of the effects of atmospheric pollution (and particularly fine particulate matter, PM2.5) on human health is unquestionable nowadays, producing mainly cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, morbidity and even mortality. These effects can even enhance in the future as a consequence of climate penalties and future changes in the population projected. Because of all these reasons, the main objective of this contribution is the estimation of annual excess premature deaths (PD) associated to PM2.5 on present (1991–2010) and future (2031–2050) European population by using non-linear exposure-response functions. The endpoints included are Lung Cancer (LC), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Low Respiratory Infections (LRI), Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD), cerebrovascular disease (CEV) and other Non-Communicable Diseases (other NCD). PM2.5 concentrations come from coupled chemistry-climate regional simulations under present and RCP8.5 future scenarios. The cases assessed include the estimation of the present incidence of PD (PRE-P2010), the quantification of the role of a changing climate on PD (FUT-P2010) and the importance of changes in the population projected for the year 2050 on the incidence of excess PD (FUT-P2050). Two additional cases (REN80-P2010 and REN80-P2050) evaluate the impact on premature mortality rates of a mitigation scenario in which the 80 % of European energy production comes from renewables sources. The results indicate that PM2.5 accounts for nearly 895,000 [95 % confidence interval (95 % CI) 725,000-1,056,000] annual excess PD over Europe, with IHD being the largest contributor to premature mortality associated to fine particles in both present and future scenarios. The case isolating the effects of climate penalty (FUT-P2010) estimates a variation +0.2 % on mortality rates over the whole domain. However, under this scenario the incidence of PD over central Europe will benefit from a decrease of PM2.5 (−2.2 PD/100,000 h.) while in eastern (+1.3 PD/100,000 h.) and western (+0.4 PD/100,000 h.) Europe PD will increase due to increased PM2.5 levels. The changes in the projected population (FUT-P2050) will lead to a large increase of annual excess PD (1,540,000, 95 % CI 1,247,000-1,818,000), +71.96 % with respect to PRE-P2010 and +71.67 % to FUT-P2010) due to the aging of the European population. Last, the mitigation scenario (REN80-P2050) demonstrates that the effects of a mitigation policy increasing the ratio of renewable sources in the energy mix energy could lead to a decrease of over 60,000 (95 % CI 48,500-70,900) annual PD for the year 2050 (a decrease of −4 % in comparison with the no-mitigation scenario, FUT-P2050). In spite of the uncertainties inherent to future estimations, this contribution reveals the need of the governments and public entities to take action and bet for air pollution mitigation policies.

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Influence of future air pollution mitigation strategies on total aerosol radiative forcing

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-8-6405-2008 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 8 (21) ◽

pp. 6405-6437 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

S. Kloster ◽

F. Dentener ◽

J. Feichter ◽

F. Raes ◽

J. van Aardenne ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Mitigation Strategies ◽

Radiation Budget ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽

Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽

Pollution Mitigation ◽

Aerosol Forcing ◽

Future Air Pollution ◽

Aerosol Radiative

Abstract. We apply different aerosol and aerosol precursor emission scenarios reflecting possible future control strategies for air pollution in the ECHAM5-HAM model, and simulate the resulting effect on the Earth's radiation budget. We use two opposing future mitigation strategies for the year 2030: one in which emission reduction legislation decided in countries throughout the world are effectively implemented (current legislation; CLE 2030) and one in which all technical options for emission reductions are being implemented independent of their cost (maximum feasible reduction; MFR 2030). We consider the direct, semi-direct and indirect radiative effects of aerosols. The total anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing defined as the difference in the top-of-the-atmosphere radiation between 2000 and pre-industrial times amounts to −2.00 W/m2. In the future this negative global annual mean aerosol radiative forcing will only slightly change (+0.02 W/m2) under the "current legislation" scenario. Regionally, the effects are much larger: e.g. over Eastern Europe radiative forcing would increase by +1.50 W/m2 because of successful aerosol reduction policies, whereas over South Asia it would decrease by −1.10 W/m2 because of further growth of emissions. A "maximum feasible reduction" of aerosols and their precursors would lead to an increase of the global annual mean aerosol radiative forcing by +1.13 W/m2. Hence, in the latter case, the present day negative anthropogenic aerosol forcing could be more than halved by 2030 because of aerosol reduction policies and climate change thereafter will be to a larger extent be controlled by greenhouse gas emissions. We combined these two opposing future mitigation strategies for a number of experiments focusing on different sectors and regions. In addition, we performed sensitivity studies to estimate the importance of future changes in oxidant concentrations and the importance of the aerosol microphysical coupling within the range of expected future changes. For changes in oxidant concentrations caused by future air pollution mitigation, we do not find a significant effect for the global annual mean radiative aerosol forcing. In the extreme case of only abating SO2 or carbonaceous emissions to a maximum feasible extent, we find deviations from additivity for the radiative forcing over anthropogenic source regions up to 10% compared to an experiment abating both at the same time.

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The economic impact of air pollution: a European assessment

European Journal of Public Health ◽

10.1093/eurpub/ckaa165.084 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽

Author(s):

S Conti ◽

P Ferrara ◽

L S D'Angiolella ◽

S C Lorelli ◽

G Agazzi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Economic Burden ◽

Indirect Costs ◽

Premature Mortality ◽

Cochrane Library ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Life Years ◽

Health Related ◽

Disease Study ◽

The Impact

Abstract Background In 2017, the Global Burden of Disease Study estimated that in Europe 0.42 million deaths and 8.9 million disability-adjusted life years were attributable to air pollution. Monetizing this burden is a key step for estimating benefits of exposure reduction strategies. However, robust and synthetic estimates of direct (e.g. due to hospitalizations or medications) and indirect (e.g. due to premature mortality or loss of productivity) health-related costs of air pollution seem to be still lacking. We carried out a systematic review, aimed at identifying evidence from research in Europe. Methods We searched 5 electronic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, SCOPUS, Web Of Science) in which we applied algorithms tracing keywords such as “cost of illness”, “health care costs”, “economics” and synonyms, together with “air pollution” and synonyms. We limited our search to articles written in English and Italian, without date restriction. Results The initial search retrieved 2420 records. 200 were classified as relevant, and 38 fulfilled inclusion criteria. Most of them (68%) were published after 2010. 26% were multi-country studies, while the remaining focused on a single country or city. Investigated pollutants were usually particulate matter (79% of the studies) and nitrogen oxides (37%). The approaches to the economic analysis were heterogeneous: estimates could include direct and/or indirect costs. Among the studies, the most comprehensive one (12 countries) estimated that complying with WHO guidelines would avert €31 billion yearly, of which €19 million due to hospitalizations. Conclusions Over the last decade, progress has been made in evaluating the economic burden of air pollution. However, estimates based on indirect costs are affected by high levels of uncertainty, while those based on direct costs are more robust and should be further investigated, since they are crucial information for healthcare policy makers. Key messages Air pollution poses a high economic burden on European countries, mainly due to social costs. More attention should be devoted to estimating direct healthcare costs of air pollution, in order to properly inform policy makers about the impact on healthcare systems.

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