The co-benefits to health of a strong EU climate change policy

The objective of this paper is to quantify important co-benefits of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation under scenarios where domestic GHG emissions are reduced by 30% across the European Union by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, rather than by the 20% considered in the proposal by the European Commission (EC). These co-benefits for EU citizens result from the reduction in emissions of the air pollutants sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) that would arise as a result of a reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and are additional to benefits from reduced greenhouse gas emissions.