Stringent climate policies could offer major health and economic gains by 2030

Medical Xpress October 17, 2025
CMCC Foundation - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change

Air pollution is one of the world’s leading health risks, contributing to nearly one in eight deaths globally. A new study published in Science Advances by the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) shows that stringent climate policies designed to avoid temporarily exceeding 1.5°C warming could prevent hundreds of thousands of premature deaths while avoiding trillions of dollars in economic damages.

The researchers used a global source-receptor air pollution model to estimate the impacts of net-zero pathways on air quality, health, and economic costs.

They found that avoiding temperature overshoot could prevent 207,000 premature deaths and reduce $2,269 billion USD in damages by 2030, equivalent to roughly 2%...