In the current era of globalization, a clean environment remains a crucial factor for the health of the population. Thus, improving air quality is a major focus of environmental policies, as it affects all aspects of nature, including humans. For these reasons, it is appropriate to take into account the health risks posed by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions released into the atmosphere. With regard to global GHG emissions, there are concerns about the loss of protection of the ozone layer and it is very likely that climate change can be expected, which multiplies the environmental threat and has potentially serious global consequences. In this regard, it is important to pay increased attention to emissions that enter the atmosphere, which include countless toxic substances. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between selected GHG emissions and the health of the European Union (EU) population represented by disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). This aim was achieved using several analytical procedures (descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, cluster analysis, and panel regression analysis), which included five environmental variables (carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) in CO2 equivalent, nitrous oxide (N2O) in CO2 equivalent, hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) in CO2 equivalent, sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) in CO2 equivalent) and one health variable (DALYs). An emphasis was placed on the use of quantitative methods. The results showed that CO2 emissions have a dominant position among selected GHG emissions. The revealed positive link between CO2 and DALYs indicated that a decrease in CO2 may be associated with a decrease in DALYs, but it is also true that this cannot be done without reducing emissions of other combustion products. In terms of CO2, the least positive scores were observed in Luxembourg and Estonia. Germany had the lowest score of DALYs, representing the most positive health outcome in the EU. In terms of total GHG emissions, Ireland and Luxembourg were considered to be less positive countries compared to the other analyzed countries. Countries should focus on reducing GHG emissions in general, but from a health point of view, reducing CO2 emissions seems to be the most beneficial.

Center for Applied Economic Research Faculty of Management and Economics Tomas Bata University in Zlín Zlín Czechia

Department of Marketing and International Trade Faculty of Management University of Prešov Prešov Slovakia

Institute of Earth Resources Faculty of Mining Ecology Process Control and Geotechnologies Technical University of Košice Košice Slovakia

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Manisalidis I, Stavropoulou E, Stavropoulos A, Bezirtzoglou E. Environmental and health impacts of air pollution: a review. Front Public Health. (2020) 8:14. 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00014 PubMed DOI PMC

McMichael AJ, Woodruff RE, Hales S. Climate change and human health: present and future risks. Lancet. (2006) 367:859–69. 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68079-3 PubMed DOI

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. AR5 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2014. Available online at: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ (accessed April 4, 2021).

European Parliament. Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Country and Sector (Infographic). Available online at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20180301STO98928/greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-country-and-sector-infographic (accessed April 4, 2021).

European Commission. Climate Strategies & Targets. Available online at: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/strategies_en (accessed November 1, 2021).

European Environment Agency. EEA Signals 2020 – Towards Zero Pollution in Europe. Copenhagen: European Environment Agency; (2020).

Koornneef J, Van Harmelen T, Van Horssen A, Ramirez A. Carbon dioxide capture and air quality. In: Mazzeo N, editor. Chemistry, Emission Control, Radioactive Pollution and Indoor Air Quality. London: IntechOpen; (2011). p. 17–44.

Dilmore R, Zhang L. Greenhouse gases and their role in climate change. In: Romanov V, editor. Greenhouse Gases and Clay Minerals. Green Energy and Technology. Cham: Springer; (2018). p. 15–32.

Garg A, Shukla PR, Kapshe M. The sectoral trends of multigas emissions inventory of India. Atmos Environ. (2006) 40:4608–20. 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2006.03.045 DOI

Hann D, Žarn J, Markič M. Properties of CO2 adsorption for petrographically diverse ortho-lignites and some higher rank coals. Acta Montan Slovaca. (2020) 25:324–36. 10.46544//AMS.v25i3.6 DOI

Preble CV, Chen SS, Hotchi T, Sohn MD, Maddalena RL, Russell ML, et al. . Air pollutant emission rates for dry anaerobic digestion and composting of organic municipal solid waste. Environ Sci Technol. (2020) 54:16097–107. 10.1021/acs.est.0c03953 PubMed DOI

D'Amato G, Pawankar R, Vitale C, Maurizia L. Climate change and air pollution: effects on respiratory allergy. Allergy Asthma Immunol Res. (2016) 8:391–5. 10.4168/aair.2016.8.5.391 PubMed DOI PMC

Gao J, Kovats S, Vardoulakis S, Wilkinson P, Woodward A, Li J, et al. . Public health co-benefits of greenhouse gas emissions reduction: a systematic review. Sci Total Environ. (2018) 627:388–402. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.01.193 PubMed DOI

Eckelman MJ, Huang K, Lagasse R, Senay E, Dubrow R, Sherman JD. Health care pollution and public health damage in the United States: an update. Health Aff. (2020) 39:2071–9. 10.1377/hlthaff.2020.01247 PubMed DOI

Woodcock J, Edwards P, Tonne C, Armstrong BG, Ashiru O, Banister D, et al. . Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: urban land transport. Lancet. (2009) 374:1930–43. 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61714-1 PubMed DOI

Kwan SC, Tainio M, Woodcock J, Sutan R, Hashim JH. The carbon savings and health co-benefits from the introduction of mass rapid transit system in Greater Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. J Transp Health. (2017) 6:187–200. 10.1016/j.jth.2017.06.006 DOI

De Schryver AM, Brakkee KW, Goedkoop MJ, Huijbregts MA. Characterization factors for global warming in life cycle assessment based on damages to humans and ecosystems. Environ Sci Technol. (2009) 43:1689–95. 10.1021/es800456m PubMed DOI

Zhai Y, Ma X, Gao F, Zhang T, Hong J, Zhang X, et al. . Is energy the key to pursuing clean air and water at the city level? A case study of Jinan City, China. Renew Sust Energ Rev. (2020) 134:110353. 10.1016/j.rser.2020.110353 DOI

Liu M, Huang Y, Jin Z, Liu X, Bi J, Jantunen MJ. Estimating health co-benefits of greenhouse gas reduction strategies with a simplified energy balance based model: The Suzhou City case. J Clean Prod. (2017) 142:3332–42. 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.10.137 DOI

Tang L, Ii R, Tokimatsu K, Itsubo N. Development of human health damage factors related to CO2 emissions by considering future socioeconomic scenarios. Int J Life Cycle Assess. (2018) 23:2288–99. 10.1007/s11367-015-0965-9 DOI

Dong H, Xue M, Xiao Y, Liu Y. Do carbon emissions impact the health of residents? Considering China's industrialization and urbanization. Sci Total Environ. (2021) 758:143688. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143688 PubMed DOI

Vandenberghe D, Albrecht J. Tackling the chronic disease burden: are there co-benefits from climate policy measures? Eur J Health Econ. (2018) 19:1259–83. 10.1007/s10198-018-0972-4 PubMed DOI

Montagu K, Moore S, Southam-Rogers L, Phi Hung N, Mann L, Rogers G. Low nitrous oxides emissions from Australian processing tomato crops – a win for the environment, our health and farm productivity. Acta Hortic. (2017) 1159:7–14. 10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1159.2 DOI

West JJ, Fiore AM, Horowitz LW, Mauzerall DL. Global health benefits of mitigating ozone pollution with methane emission controls. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. (2006) 103:3988–93. 10.1073/pnas.0600201103 PubMed DOI PMC

Agrawal KK, Jain S, Jain AK, Dahiya S. Assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from coal and natural gas thermal power plants using life cycle approach. Int J Environ Sci Technol. (2014) 11:1157–64. 10.1007/s13762-013-0420-z DOI

Širá E, Kotulič R, Kravčáková Vozárová I, Danová M. Sustainable development in EU countries in the framework of the Europe 2020 strategy. Processes. (2021) 9:443. 10.3390/pr9030443 DOI

Škare M, Tomić D, Stjepanović S. Energy consumption and green GDP in Europe: a panel cointegration analysis 2008 - 2016. Acta Montan Slovaca. (2020) 25:46–56. 10.46544/AMS.v25i1.5 DOI

Laliotis I, Ioannidis JPA, Stavropoulou C. Total and cause-specific mortality before and after the onset of the Greek economic crisis: an interrupted time-series analysis. Lancet Public Health. (2016) 1:56–65. 10.1016/S2468-2667(16)30018-4 PubMed DOI

The Lancet . Global Burden of Disease. Available online at: https://www.thelancet.com/gbd (accessed November 1, 2021).

Eurostat . Data From: Eurostat Database. Available online at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database (accessed April 4, 2021).

WHO . Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). Available online at: https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/158 (accessed April 4, 2021).

GBD . Data From: Global Burden of Disease Study. Results. Seattle, WA: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Available online at: http://ghdx.healthdata.org/ (accessed April 4, 2021).

Breusch TS, Pagan AR. A simple test for heteroscedasticity and random coefficient variation. Econometrica. (1979) 47:1287–94. 10.2307/1911963 PubMed DOI

Wooldridge JM. Econometric Analysis of Cross–Section and Panel Data. Cambridge, MA; London: The MIT Press; (2010). 1096 p.

Baltagi BH, Li Q. Testing AR(1) against MA(1) disturbances in an error component model. J Econom. (1995) 68:133–51. 10.1016/0304-4076(94)01646-H DOI

Angrist JD, Newey WK. Over-identification tests in earnings functions with fixed effects. J Bus Econ Stat. (1991) 9:317–23. 10.1080/07350015.1991.10509857 DOI

Schubert E, Rousseeuw PJ. Faster k-Medoids clustering: Improving the PAM, CLARA, and CLARANS algorithms. In: Amato G, Gennaro C, Oria V, Radovanović M, editors. Similarity Search and Applications. SISAP 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer; (2019). p. 171–87.

Kassambara A. Practical Guide to Cluster Analysis in R: Unsupervised Machine Learning. Paris: STHDA; (2017). 188 p.

Landrigan PJ, Fuller R, Acosta NJR, Adeyi O, Arnold R, Basu N, et al. . The Lancet Commission on pollution and health. Lancet. (2018) 391:462–512. 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32345-0 PubMed DOI

Panja P. Deforestation, carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere and global warming: a modelling study. Int J Model Simul. (2021) 41:209–19. 10.1080/02286203.2019.1707501 DOI

Kuklinska K, Wolska L, Namiesnik J. Air quality policy in the U.S. and the EU – a review. Atmos Pollut Res. (2015) 6:129–37. 10.5094/APR.2015.015 DOI

El Iysaouy L, El Idrissi NE, Tvaronavičiene M, Lahbabi M, Oumnad A. Towards energy efficiency: Case of Morocco. Insights Reg Dev. (2019) 1:259–71. 10.9770/ird.2019.1.3(6) DOI

Savitz R, Gavriletea MD. Climate change and insurance. Transform Bus Econ. (2019) 18:21–43. Available online at: http://www.transformations.knf.vu.lt/46/gp46.pdf (accessed November 1, 2021).

Zhiying J, Pengyu L, Xiaosong Z. Manufacturing agglomeration and environmental efficiency in China: insights from the panel threshold model. Transform Bus Econ. (2019) 18:257–77. Available online at: http://www.transformations.knf.vu.lt/46/article/manu (accessed November 1, 2021).

Adlong W, Dietsch E. Environmental education and the health professions: framing climate change as a health issue. Environ Educ Res. (2015) 21:687–709. 10.1080/13504622.2014.930727 PubMed DOI

Kabir K, Gilani SM, Rehmanc G, Sabahat SH, Popp J, Shehzad Hassan MA, et al. . Energy-aware caching and collaboration for green communication systems. Acta Montan Slovaca. (2021) 26:47–59. 10.46544/AMS.v26i1.04 DOI

Khouri S, Behun M, Knapcikova L, Behunova A, Sofranko M, Rosova A. Characterization of customized encapsulant polyvinyl butyral used in the solar industry and its impact on the environment. Energies. (2020) 13:5391. 10.3390/en13205391 DOI

McBride BB, Brewer CA, Berkowitz AR, Borrie WT. Environmental literacy, ecological literacy, ecoliteracy: what do we mean and how did we get here? Ecosphere. (2013) 4:67. 10.1890/ES13-00075.1 DOI