The cost of air pollution: Health impacts of road transport

May 22nd, 2014

From the more depressing news about air quality department, a new OECD report was published today on the health impacts of air pollution.  It calculates that outdoor air pollution kills more than 3.5 million people a year globally, far more than was previously estimated.

Air pollution has now become the biggest environmental cause of premature death, overtaking poor sanitation and a lack of clean drinking water. In most OECD countries, the death toll from heart and lung diseases caused by air pollution is much higher than the one from traffic accidents.

The OECD has estimated that people in its 34 Member countries would be willing to pay USD 1.7 trillion to avoid deaths caused by air pollution. Road transport is likely responsible for about half.

Air pollution in OECD countries has fallen in recent years, helped by tighter emission controls on vehicles, but it has increased in China and India as rapid growth in traffic has outpaced the adoption of tighter emission limits. The switch to more polluting diesel vehicles in many countries threatens to arrest the downward trend in emissions from road transport in OECD countries.

The cost of air pollution: Health impacts of road transport estimates the economic cost of the health impacts of air pollution from road transport – on a global scale, but with special reference to People’s Republic of China, India and the OECD member countries.

It establishes this estimate by multiplying the “value of statistical life” (derived by aggregating individuals’ willingness to pay to secure a small reduction in the risk of premature death) by the number of deaths attributable to outdoor air pollution, as released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2010.

Best of all, the OECD report references previous work by Emission Impossible Ltd for Auckland Council (see page 40).