Reducing global air pollution can prevent millions of premature deaths according to an international team of scientists, led by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. The most significant contribution would be the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels, which is currently being discussed mainly to abate climate change. The researchers used a global atmospheric chemistry and climate model, linked to the latest estimates of health effects in order to study the combined impact of decarbonisation on public health, precipitation and the climate. The results of the study have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).