Climate, health, agricultural and economic impacts of tighter vehicle emissions standards

• Published in: Nature Climate Change
• Main Authors: SHINDELL D. T., FALUVEGI G., WALSH M., ANENBERG S., VAN DINGENEN Rita, MULLER Nicholas Z., AUSTIN Jeff, KOCH Dorothy, MILLY George
• Language: English
• Published: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP 2011
• Subjects: Climate change; Human health
• Online Access: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC63507; http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n1/full/nclimate1066.html; https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1066

Climate change and air quality affect many aspects of human society. We use a global composition-climate model to examine the integrated impacts of adoption of existing European on-road vehicle emission standards in 2015 in China, India, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Relative to baseline emissions, the tight standards lead to: 138000-245000 annually avoided premature deaths in 2030, mitigation of 0.19 (+0.12/-0.20) C of Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude warming and 0.23 (+0.15/-0.23) C of Arctic warming during 2040-2060, 6.1-19.7 million metric tons increased annual yields of major food crops, and 0.6-2.4 trillion $US avoided health and 1.1-4.3 billion $US avoided agricultural damages. Tighter vehicle emissions standards are extremely likely to mitigate climate change in most cases and are certain to improve human health and food security. The greatest climate benefits come from controls on diesel trucks in Brazil and India and on gasoline vehicles in North Africa/Middle East. JRC.H.2 - Climate change and air quality