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| |  Worldwide Deaths Related To Fossil-Fuel Consumption LONDON, ENGLAND -- November 7, 1997 -- Predictions about the short-term impact on public health of global-climate policies on fossil-fuel combustion are presented in this week's The Lancet by The Working Group on Public Health and Fossil-Fuel Combustion. This interdisciplinary group predict that a global effort made now to reduce particulate-matter (PM) pollution, which results from burning fossil fuels, could prevent up to eight million deaths worldwide during the first 20 years of the next century. To estimate the consequences for public health of projected global events, scenario-based impact assessments need to be developed. The working group analysed results from two possible CO2-emission scenarios: business-as-usual (BAU) -- in which expected trends in energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions were used; and a hypothetical climate policy -- in which the stated intentions of the European Union regarding proposed reductions in CO2 emissions for developed countries, along with additional measures by developing countries, were considered in analyses. The group do not claim their findings are precise predictions. But they do have the power to estimate that by 2020, 700,000 avoidable deaths will occur annually as a result of additional PM exposure under the BAU forecasts when compared with the climate-policy scenario. Although environmental factors cannot account for all health patterns, they are important because they can be changed by public policy, the researchers explained. "Regardless of how or when greenhouse gases alter climate, reducing them now will save lives worldwide by lessening particulate air pollution," they write The researchers put their findings in perspective by adding that with the ability to predict, comes the power to change those predictions.
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