Inaction on climate change projected to reduce European life expectancy

Mathew Hauer and Alexis R Santos-Lozada
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Alexis R Santos-Lozada: Pennsylvania State University

No ngtxr, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Climate change-related excess mortality estimates clearly demonstrate a dramatic impact on public health and human mortality. However, life expectancy at birth is more easily communicated and understood by the public. By properly situating climate change mortality within the contexts of life expectancy, we better represent the cost of climate change on longevity. In this paper, we convert excess mortality estimates due to increases in extreme weather from climate change into potential reductions in life expectancy at birth in thirty-one European countries. We project climate change extremes to reduce life expectancy at birth by 0.24 years for the average European country with differences in excess of 1.0 years in some countries by the end of the century. We only estimate the impact of mortality directly related to climate extremes, making our estimates conservative. Thus, the cost of inaction on climate change could approach, and likely to exceed, one year of life in some European countries.

Date: 2017-08-18
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:ngtxr

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/ngtxr

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