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ALTHOUGH IRELAND RANKS the lowest of all European countries on climate change progress, it is signed up to the Paris Climate Agreement – a huge deal signed in December 2015 for countries to work together to tackle the mammoth issue.
That international accord between 195 countries will end up costing trillions of euro globally.
However, a new study has revealed the costs of implementing it between 2020 and 2050 could be outweighed by the health savings.
According to The Lancet Planetary Health journal, estimates from a modelling study show the reduced incidence of air pollution-related disease and death could offset the global costs.
From 2020, the countries signed up to the Agreement aim to reduce the impacts of climate change by preventing the global average temperature from increasing to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. They eventually hope to limit that to less than 1.5°C.
Although some progress has been made on fundraising with the UN’s voluntary Green Climate Fund, there are no agreed details as yet of how these targets will be paid for, and thus achieved.
Different scenarios
The authors of this study are hoping the research into how good the health impacts could be will nudge political leaders into putting up the necessary cash – and implementing the policies required to reduce emissions.
“We hope that the large health co-benefits we have estimated for different scenarios and countries might help policymakers move towards adopting more ambitious climate policies and measures to reduce air pollution, and to consider how to share the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution-related disease,” Professor Anil Markandya, Basque Centre for Climate Change, Spain said.
The researchers looked at air-pollution related deaths, including those caused by respiratory disease, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, lung cancer, and acute lower respiratory airway infections, and their costs in the US, the EU27, China, India and the rest of the world.
They looked at what would happen if nothing was done; if countries continue their current policies and spend; and three different strategies for implementing and funding the Paris Agreement towards the 2°C and the 1.5°C limits.
The second option – current country-level strategies – are estimated to cost €6.16 trillion and could potentially lead to 5% fewer (122 million) air pollution-related deaths globally between 2020 and 2050. That would compare to option one – no mitigation strategies being in place – which would see 128 million deaths.
With this second scenario, the US and EU would contribute the majority of the costs (US: 66.3%, €4 trillion; EU: 28.9%, €1.81 trillion), while under the Paris Climate Agreement costs would be spread more evenly across all countries – with cost increases likely to be smallest for the US and EU, and largest for the rest of the world, India, and China.
Overall, the costs of implementing the Paris Climate Agreement ranged from 0.5 to 1% global GDP (€18.4 trillion to €34.14 trillion) for the 2°C target, and from 1 to 1.3% global GDP (€33 trillion to €46 trillion) for the 1.5°C target. The study estimates significantly fewer air pollution-related deaths between 2020 and 2050 globally under these options – reducing deaths by 21 to 27% if the 2°C target were met (that is between 93 and 101 million deaths) and by 28 to 32% if the 1.5°C target were met (between 87 to 92 million deaths).
Depending on the strategy used to mitigate climate change, estimates suggest that the health savings from reduced air pollution could be between 1.4 to 2.5 times greater than the costs of climate change mitigation, globally.
If the constant emissions ratio strategy to reach that 2°C target was implemented it could mean the health savings would be double the global policy costs. That is €44.4 million saved, with just €18.4 million spent.
In November 2017, the Environment Protection Agency said poor air quality is directly linked to about 1,500 deaths in Ireland every year. TheJournal.ie Factcheck found Minister Denis Naughten’s claim that four people die because of air pollution every day in this country mostly true. (Read more about that here.)
China and India to benefit
Under all three of the scenarios proposed, the countries likely to see the biggest health savings from improved climate change mitigation are India and China – with India accounting for roughly 43% of the health savings in all scenarios, and China accounting for roughly 55%. This is because these countries have large populations, many of whom are exposed to higher than acceptable pollution levels.
In fact, the total cost of the policies would be completely offset by the health savings.
It wouldn’t be quite the same for the US and the EU27 where, although the contribution would be large, it wouldn’t be complete.
However, the authors note that these health savings are just one of many of the benefits of reduced climate change. “Attaining the 2°C target comes with considerable benefits from reduced climate change globally, such as health benefits, employment opportunities, reduced loss of or damage to property, and reduced losses in agriculture. Furthermore, attaining a 1.5°C target has even greater climate benefits,” Professor Markandya added.
“The key contribution of this report is that it makes visible the very large, previously hidden health and economic benefits of climate mitigation and shows that these benefits are greater than the costs of climate change prevention,” Professor Philip Landrigan, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA, said in an accompanying comment to the article.
Political and economic arguments against climate mitigation and pollution control are typically based on short-sighted, one-sided, and self-serving calculations that consider only the tangible, concrete, and relatively easily counted costs of controlling emissions.
“This report’s carefully crafted conclusion that the health and economic benefits of climate mitigation significantly outweigh its costs provides a powerful rebuttal to those arguments.”
US participation
US President Donald Trump withdrew America from the Paris Climate Agreement on 1 June 2017 but there is a four-year exit process so it cannot actually leave until a day after the 2020 Presidential Election. Earlier this year, he said that the US may reenter the accord if it was a “completely different deal”.
It is still the top contributor to the Green Climate Fund, which was set up by the United Nations Climate Change conference in 2010.
As of January 2018, the Green Climate Fund has raised US$10.3 billion in pledges from 43 state governments, including $3 billion from the US and $2.7 million from Ireland.
Ireland formally signed the Paris Climate Agreement in April 2017. Ireland, through the European Union, indicated its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.
However, a report in November last year showed that Ireland is the worst performing country in Europe for taking action against climate change.
Dropping 28 places from last year, Ireland ranked 49 out of 59 countries in the 2018 Climate Change Performance Index, issued by Germanwatch and the NewClimate Institute.
This was the lowest ranking of any European country. Sweden and Norway ranked top of the index.
The authors of this study in The Lancet note some limitations, including that their health cost estimates only look at air pollution-related disease and death, and there could be further health savings from other pollution-related disease. The study also relies on the accuracy of the models it used. They say more research will be needed to handle to exact distribution of costs across countries when the mitigation strategy for the Paris Agreement is agreed.
Just remember one thing these people who died where somebody’s son somebody’s daughter somebody’s grandson somebody’s father somebody sister somebody’s brother somebody mother ,somebody’s.
I hope it’s never me on the streets I hope it’s never you on the streets I hope it’s never one of my family members on the streets.
@Deadman Walking: exactly mate
Would appear to the accepted norm now, by some. That such things, and other things are permitted happen however ‘its unacceptable’ is bandied about, makes it acceptable. Acceptance brings normality.
homeless people no use to FFG they dont do the brown envelope
Agh, nó need to prioritise the local population, they are expendable. With knowing they won’t reach their yearly housing building targets, it really doesn’t make sense to keep allowing asylum seekers to arrive. What about a stop for a year so numbers of local people housed can maybe start stabilising? No, I’m not talking about Ukrainians, they are coming from war that is knocking on our backdoor. Helping them is the least we should do.
@peter willekens: Asylum seekers are not the cause of homelessness.
@Phil Mitchell: You’re telling me that the most powerless people in the country are to blame for the country’s problems?
@peter willekens: Go ahead and round up 120 Dublin homeless and tell them you’re going to stick them in a hotel in Roscrea, and see what answer you get. Accommodating asylum seekers has little to no impact on our housing issues.
@Phil Mitchell: which asylum seekers caused 10k Irish people to be homeless before the War in Ukraine?
@Brendan O’Brien: im not blaming asylum seekers, I’m blaming the accommodation that they occupy while here. Whether they have a right to be here or not, they are taking up spaces to live all around the country. Especially in Dublin, stop them coming in for a year and allocate the little bit that is available to the locals.
@Brendan O’Brien: we in Ireland have spent our entire existence claiming we can’t in refugees.
We’re you demanding we take in Syrian refugees a decade ago, because it wasn’t fair to Germany?
No.
Saying we’ll only take in refugees when we sort out our decade plus long housing crisis is a nonsense as well. You think it’ll be fixed in a year? Despite there being over 10k Irish homeless before the Ukraine war?
C’mon.
You’re just looking for excuses to keep out foreigners, and the only one you have is, ‘our government is so incompetent and has been for so long that it hurts us when we keep to our legally binding agreements… So let’s ignore the law and hope for magic solutions’.
Why would anyone take that opinion seriously? Especially as its just a cover for xenophobia.
@peter willekens: there are thousands of them here and a tiny fraction of that are not accommodated. We don’t have that many hostels even though hundreds of buildings are being renovated to take more as it is a very lucrative business. Just give it a break as the government are not up to scratch to build more general housing. We are talking students, homeless, irish families, those that went back to live with their parents, those couch surfing,… Not just new builds would solve part of the problem……
@peter willekens: This Housing Crisis was first identified over 10 years ago and we’ve been debating it ever since, nothing has been done mind except for FFG thinking Vulture Funds would solve the problem.
@peter willekens: There’s Thousands of of empty houses in Leitrim, Roscommon and Mayo. A few years ago the government proposed using those to rehome a lot of the Dublin homeless but it was rejected wholesale. Literally people chose to be homeless in Dublin than be housed in the west of Ireland.
@Phil Mitchell: you can’t break the law because you spent 100 years voting for people who couldn’t source a proper bucket, despite most of them owning bucket factories, and you’ll be hard pressed convincing anyone you care about bucket capacity when you haven’t mentioned it ever, until bucket sizes could be used to spread xenophobia.
Try again.
Also, Irish people relying purely on markets – markets which generate more revenue the smaller the bucket – isn’t an excuse for breaking the law. Or attacking refugees.
All of us down to a person watched all of you ignore the housing crisis completely, for a decade, when all it do was hurt poor Irish people. We know you don’t care about Ireland or the Irish. This is just a trojan horse to spread hatred.
And guess what, the only people falling for it are xenophobes.
How many times have you voted for FFFG?
Wanna know who to blame for our decade plus old housing crisis? Buy a mirror.
We have reached a new point in our history – no Irish citizen or person working here & paying taxes is as important as a person coming here to claim international protection
I for one don’t recall being asked if I agree with this new reality
@Gerry Kelly: You are framing the problem wrongly: there is no reason why looking after refugees and ‘our own’ should be an ‘either-or’. We can and must do both.
@Brendan O’Brien: we have been & more than most & now it’s coming to the stage or has come to the stage where it’s simply not sustainable to keep taking in refugees especially when we see figures like this re. homeless people in Ireland. Why can’t you see that!? We’ve done enough!
@Gerry Kelly: Loling that you think everyone needs to be asked before we sign up to the UN Convention on Human Rights.
Golly Gerry, what do you think about the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951? We’re you alive and of voting age in 1951?
Stop being a dope.
We don’t all get a say on every UN treaty. Or every subsection of every EU law. Demanding it makes you look simple.
@damien leen: we have not been ‘more than most’
In fact we’ve done FAR FAR LESS than any country near Ukraine.
And tell me, when Germany took in a million Syrian refugees, were you demanding Ireland take its fair share, because you’re such a huge believer in the fair distribution of refugees?
Of course you didn’t.
You’re just being a hypocrite in that respect.
But to be clear, the problem isn’t refugees. Eg we have 14x more Airbnb listings than long term rentals available. Eg we sold 2/3rds of our social housing to private ownership. Eg we had 10k homeless before the War in Ukraine.
The problem is we keep electing right wing landlords. Who in turn create the above described environment. Because as Leo said, excess housing drives down property value.
So no, it’s not refugees. It’s anyone that’s ever voted FFFG.
Of course the Irish don’t REALLY care about this.
Instead they’ll say, ‘these were all drugged out scnm’ and if they didn’t want to die they should’ve just tried harder.
Because that’s what they always say.
How many lives could be saved by having proper injection centres, better healthcare, etc., etc. A lot.
Put injections centres on the ballot and they’re voted down. And people have voted for the same healthcare system destroying party for generations.
The Irish don’t care if you’re, sick or poor. Into the septic tank you go.
People in low paid jobs could afford bedsits 280 monthly but forced to pay, unable to afford 1700 monthly for apartments
@thomas molloy: Lefties in their Dachas deciding to devastate accommodation structures to create suffering destitution for electoral advantage.
@thomas molloy: if you had half a clue you might be dangerous… Luckily though…
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
Were they substance users because they were homeless or homeless because they were substance users?
@J M: too late to ask….. RIP
Since the 1951 Geneva Convention has been quoted then people need to know this – it was an agreement to get most of those still refugees home safely after WW2. This meant approx 5m mostly Germans in a world with a population of approx 1 BN
Today there are 8 BN people on the planet & over 100m refugees
If you count western Europe U.S. & Canada plus Oz & NZ there are approx 35 countries they are trying to enter
Do the maths….
And if certain NGOs get their way the number will rise by 100s more millions if “climate refugees” are counted
It’s well time people were told of this
People do die whether they are homeless or not .
@SFmeansShitforfree. I agree. While I sympathise with people sleeping on the street context is badly needed here. I give money directly to people who appear to be destitute as there are too many people making a living on their backs.
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