Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: health implications of short-lived greenhouse pollutants

In this report we review the health effects of three short-lived greenhouse pollutants-black carbon, ozone, and sulphates. We under-took new meta-analyses of existing time-series studies and an analysis of a cohort of 352000 people in 66 US cities during 18 years of follow-up. This cohort study provides estimates of mortality effects from long-term exposure to elemental carbon, an indicator of black carbon mass, and evidence that ozone exerts an independent risk of mortality. Associations among these pollutants make drawing conclusions about their individual health effects difficult at present, but sulphate seems to have the most robust effects in multiple-pollutant models. Generally, the toxicology of the pure compounds and their epidemiology diverge because atmospheric black carbon, ozone, and sulphate are associated and could interact with related toxic species. Although sulphate is a cooling agent, black carbon and ozone could together exert nearly half as much global warming as carbon dioxide. The complexity of these health and climate effects needs to be recognised in mitigation policies.