Climate change impacts on human health over Europe through its effect on air quality

This review is based on current literature, especially the 5^th Assessment report (AR5) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). It looks at the effects of future emissions on health impacts on air quality (ozone -O₃- and particulate matter -PM) based on the development of greenhouse gases and climate change, with a focus on Europe.

The key findings of the review are as follows:

• The amount of background O₃ is expected to decrease under most RCPs. Only under the extreme pathway, an increase in background O₃ is expected.
• The future change in the concentration of PM is much less certain.
• Under the different pathways of the RCP scenarios, the impacts of emission change on air quality up to 2050 will be larger than that due to climate change, due to large reduction in emissions of O₃ and PM pollutant precursor emissions.
• Climate extreme effects such as heatwaves will be affected due to climate change.
• The few studies on health effects associated with climate change impacts on air quality report higher O₃ related heat burden in polluted densely populated regions in Europea and greater PM_2,5 heat burden.
• Due to a large decrease in precursor emissions, there will also be a reduction in global and European premature O₃ respiratory related and PM mortalities.
• Only under the extreme pathway (RPC8.5), with a large increase in CH4, global and European excess in O₃ related mortalities is to be expected in 2100.