THE IMPACT OF CO2 AND HFCs EMISSIONS ON HUMAN HEALTH IN THE EU27 COUNTRIES

Abstract

Human health is an essential pillar of the societal development. Maintaining or increasing the level of human health depends on a number of factors. Among them, nowadays, environmental degradation through GHG emissions represents a crucial factor due to its short- and long-term effects on the quality of peoples’ lives. In this relationship an important role is played by economic growth based on the use of non-renewable energy responsible for triggering significant amounts of GHG emissions. In this complex context, this study investigates the relationship between environmental degradation (measured by CO2 and HFCs emissions) and human health (measured by Healthy Life Years – HLY) in EU27 countries in the 2010-2020 period. The countries were classified in two groups depending on their levels of decoupling of economic growth from CO2 and HFCs emissions for observing comparatively the impact of managing the level of air pollution generated by the economic activities on HLY. Using panel data specific methods, the main findings revealed that both GHG emissions had negative influences on the HLY, but their impact is higher in the countries with lower levels of decoupling. Furthermore, for ensuring the robustness of the results, urbanization (URB) and educational attainment (EDA) were added as factors in the models estimated. The results obtained in the developed models were in line with the ones from the initial models, thus sustaining their robustness. In addition, it was found that URB and EDA produced significant effects only in the countries with higher levels of decoupling. The study is relevant for a wide range of stakeholders implicated in finding potential solutions to limit air pollution and enhance humans’ health in the EU27 countries.

Keywords

• healthy life years
• ghg emissions
• decoupling
• eu27 countries
• panel data modelling