A Carbon Calculation: How Many Deaths Are Emissions Caused?

In his article, Mr. Bressler incorporated the latest public health research into the latest version of the DICE model, which estimates the number of extreme deaths attributable to rising temperatures. The resulting extended model produced a surprisingly high figure for the social cost of carbon: $258 per metric ton.

He coined a term for the relationship between increased emissions and extreme heat deaths: the “cost of death of carbon”.

Heat waves that become more frequent and stronger with climate change, linked to illness and death, with profound effects in less affluent countries. Recent off-chart temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and Canada already linked to hundreds of deaths.

Others have tried put numbers on death rates associated with climate change and the additional costs associated with it, especially Climate Impact Laboratory at the University of Chicago. Maureen Cropper, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, a neutral environmental research organization in Washington, argued that Mr. Bressler’s $258 estimate seems too high, in part because the article examines how people around the world look at the environment. the value of their own lives. “While I disagree with some of the author’s assumptions, it is important that researchers continue the effort,” he added.

Mr Bressler acknowledged that there are areas of uncertainty in the paper, including some established in some public health research investigating extreme deaths from heat. It also relied solely on heat-related deaths, without adding other climate-related causes of death, such as flooding, crop shortages, and civil unrest. As a result, the actual death toll may be smaller or higher. “Based on the available literature,” he said, “this is the best estimate.”

Richard Revesz, professor at the New York University School of Law, commended the new study, which expands the research he and others have done to see the social cost of carbon as the biggest issue. the beginning of understanding the costs of climate change, not full cost.

“It can have a significant impact on climate change policies,” he said.

The new research also shows the big difference between personal carbon footprints and the type of change that can be achieved through government and business-scale actions. By calculating that 4,434 metric tons of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere will result in one death this century, Mr. Bressler said that simply shutting down a coal-fired power plant and replacing it with a zero-emissions alternative for one year would result in “one death benefit of saving 904 lives” for a century. “That would have been much more of an impact than a personal decision,” he said.

However, he added that he does not prefer one course of action over the other.

“I’m just measuring things,” he said, eventually adding that “you just need to reduce carbon.”