A Stanford scientist has spelled out for the first time the direct links between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increases in human mortality, using a state-of-the-art computer model of the atmosphere that incorporates scores of physical and chemical environmental processes.

While it has long been known that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to climate change, the new study details how for each increase of one degree Celsius caused by carbon dioxide, the resulting air pollution would lead annually to about 20,000 additional deaths and many more cases of respiratory illness and asthma globally, according to the paper by Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford. 

“This is a cause and effect relationship, not just a correlation,” said Jacobson more..