The mortality cost of carbon

How many lives does a ton of carbon cost?

R. Daniel Bressler studies consequences of carbon emissions through the additional mortality they bring about in his paper "The mortality cost of carbon".

He extends the DICE-2016 climate economy model with an endogenous mortality response, calibrated to a systematic synthesis of 100 studies on temperature related deaths.

Their main conclusions include:

• The lifetime emissions of an average American account for 0.29 extra deaths between 2020 and 2100. The equivalent figure for an average person worldwide is 0.08 deaths.
• Cutting a single coal-fired power plant's annual emissions in 2020 saves around 904 lives by 2100, and reducing one million tons globally saves an expected 226 lives.
• Including mortality damages raises the 2020 social cost of carbon (SCC) from $37 to $258 per ton, which flips optimal policy from gradual reductions starting in 2050 to full decarbonisation by then.
• In the baseline scenario, 83 million cumulative excess deaths are projected by 2100, and 74 million of those can be averted by the optimal emissions path limiting warming to 2.4°C.
• By the end of the century, projected annual excess deaths from climate change reach 4.6 million, placing climate impacts sixth on the Global Burden of Disease risk list, ahead of outdoor air pollution.

The mortality framing converts the SCC into a tangible health metric, which strengthens the case for internal carbon prices, and sharpens the debate around its use in cost-benefit analyses.

This paper's $258 SCC estimate sits well above the figures historically used in impact assessments, and aligns with the recent upward revision of internal carbon prices from central banks.

The methodology however only captures temperature-related deaths, leaving out flooding, infectious disease, food supply disruptions, or conflict-driven mortality, which the literature considers equally consequential.

The framework also values lives at a single global average, masking large regional heterogeneity and how public policies can best address the predicted consequences of these carbon emissions.