In addition to CO2, burning carbon releases a wide variety of other pollutants that we will spare ourselves by going fully renewable. This is the year of Peak Carbon, so it is also the year of Peak Noxious Everything. It’s all downhill from here.
Sustainability by numbers: The world has (Probably) passed peak pollution
The health impacts of air pollution are often underrated. There are a range of estimates for how many people die prematurely from local air pollution every year.1 All are in the low millions. The World Health Organization estimates around7 million.
The good news, then, is that the world is probably passed “peak pollution”. I say “probably” because confidently declaring a peak is, apparently, the best way to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Here, I’m talking specifically about emissions of harmful local air pollutants: gases like nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide which causes acid rain, carbon monoxide, black carbon, organic carbon, non-methane volatile organic compounds. I’m not talking about greenhouse gases.
The Community Emissions Data System (CEDS) recently extended its long-term dataset on emissions of air pollutants up to the end of 2022.
(Emphasis added)
The Stanford Solutions Project has published estimates, for years, of deaths that can be prevented by going over to non-polluting energy. In the US, for example, their number is
Lives lost to air pollution that we could save each year: 62,676
That’s entirely separate from money saved and jobs created.