I’ve seen a number of otherwise-reputable media outlets run stories like this one claiming that “more than 100 million people will die and global economic growth will be cut by 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change.” After reading a story like that, you’re likely to conclude that rich Western countries need to shift to “a low-carbon economy” to avoid killing those 100 million people.
Yet if you actually read the study the numbers tell a very different story:
You can see that “climate” and “carbon”-related maladies accounted for almost 5 million deaths in 2010 and are projected to account for almost 6 million deaths in 2030. More than 60 percent of those deaths in 2010, and a majority in 2030, are due to “indoor smoke,” which means deaths due to “indoor smoke from burning wood and coal for cooking and heating.” In other words, they have nothing to do with greenhouse gases emitted by industrialized nations. Mostly these countries need fast enough economic growth that ordinary people can afford modern stoves and furnaces.
The next biggest cause, “air pollution,” accounts for 28 percent of 2010 deaths and 42 percent of 2030 deaths. Here’s what the report says about that:
Preventing or reducing air contamination relies on a community’s or region’s determination to ensure safety and health. Technology, such as particle filters for vehicles, high quality reined fuels, and regulations on clean air are the main tools for limiting toxic emissions. Air pollution and its negative effects for health can and have been brought under control through these means in major economies of the world.
The effects of this kind of air pollution is largely localized to the country that emits it. The “major economies of the world” have already taken the steps necessary to protect their own populations. Once again, what’s needed is for poorer countries to grow fast enough that they can afford the filtering technologies and clean-air regulations we enjoy in the industrialized world.
Strip out those two causes of death, and you’re left with at most 475,000 deaths attributable to climate change in 2010, and at most 757,000 deaths attributable to climate change in 2030. That’s something like 12 million deaths over the next 20 years.
Now obviously 12 million deaths is still a lot! If the rest of their calculations pan out, that’s still a good argument for taking action on climate change.
But there’s a clear sleight of hand at work here. The study’s introduction focuses primarily on “climate change,” only parenthetically mentioning that “our present carbon-intensive energy system” is responsible for most of the deaths. And that phrase, in turn, seems calculated not to tip off lazy reporters that they’re mostly talking about in-home smoke from coal furnaces and woodstoves. This has caused otherwise-reputable media outlets to inaccurately report these results as “global warming will kill 100 million people.” Many of them don’t even mention that almost 90 percent of those deaths have nothing to do with greenhouse gases or rising global temperatures.