Articles | Volume 24, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1025-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1025-2024
Research article
 | 
24 Jan 2024
Research article |  | 24 Jan 2024

Significant human health co-benefits of mitigating African emissions

Christopher D. Wells, Matthew Kasoar, Majid Ezzati, and Apostolos Voulgarakis

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Cited articles

Abera, A., Friberg, J., Isaxon, C., Jerrett, M., Malmqvist, E., Sjöström, C., Taj, T., and Vargas, A. M.: Air Quality in Africa: Public Health Implications, Annu. Rev. Publ. Health, 42, 193–210, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-100119-113802, 2021. 
Allen, R. J., Horowitz, L. W., Naik, V., Oshima, N., O'Connor, F. M., Turnock, S., Shim, S., le Sager, P., van Noije, T., Tsigaridis, K., Bauer, S. E., Sentman, L. T., John, J. G., Broderick, C., Deushi, M., Folberth, G. A., Fujimori, S., and Collins, W. J.: Significant climate benefits from near-term climate forcer mitigation in spite of aerosol reductions, Environ. Res. Lett., 16, 034010, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abe06b, 2021. 
Anenberg, S. C., Horowitz, L. W., Tong, D. Q., and West, J. J.: An estimate of the global burden of anthropogenic ozone and fine particulate matter on premature human mortality using atmospheric modeling, Environ. Health Persp., 118, 1189–1195, https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0901220, 2010. 
Bauer, S. E., Im, U., Mezuman, K., and Gao, C. Y.: Desert Dust, Industrialization, and Agricultural Fires: Health Impacts of Outdoor Air Pollution in Africa, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 124, 4104–4120, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD029336, 2019. 
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Short summary
Human-driven emissions of air pollutants, mostly caused by burning fossil fuels, impact both the climate and human health. Millions of deaths each year are caused by air pollution globally, and the future trends are uncertain. Here, we use a global climate model to study the effect of African pollutant emissions on surface level air pollution, and resultant impacts on human health, in several future emission scenarios. We find much lower health impacts under cleaner, lower-emission futures.
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