Do Environmental Markets Cause Environmental Injustice? Evidence from California's Carbon Market

Hernandez-Cortes, Danae; Meng, Kyle C.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4041857

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Our study supports the long-standing request from environmental justice communities and local organizations for location-specific solutions that center overburdened communities ( 11 , 65 – 68 ). Our results also support putting in safeguards to address the potential for pollution trading (e.g., greenhouse gas-focused cap-and-trade) to exacerbate pollution inequities, especially for already overburdened communities ( 69 – 71 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Location-specific strategies for eliminating US national racial-ethnic PM2.5 exposure inequality

Wang

Apte

Hill

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Air pollution levels in the United States have decreased dramatically over the past decades, yet national racial-ethnic exposure disparities persist. For ambient fine particulate matter ( PM 2.5 ), we investigate three emission-reduction approaches and compare their optimal ability to address two goals: 1) reduce the overall population average exposure (“overall average”) and 2) reduce the difference in the average exposure for the most exposed racial-ethnic group versus for the overall population (“national inequalities”). We show that national inequalities in exposure can be eliminated with minor emission reductions (optimal: ~1% of total emissions) if they target specific locations. In contrast, achieving that outcome using existing regulatory strategies would require eliminating essentially all emissions (if targeting specific economic sectors) or is not possible (if requiring urban regions to meet concentration standards). Lastly, we do not find a trade-off between the two goals (i.e., reducing overall average and reducing national inequalities); rather, the approach that does the best for reducing national inequalities (i.e., location-specific strategies) also does as well as or better than the other two approaches (i.e., sector-specific and meeting concentration standards) for reducing overall averages. Overall, our findings suggest that incorporating location-specific emissions reductions into the US air quality regulatory framework 1) is crucial for eliminating long-standing national average exposure disparities by race-ethnicity and 2) can benefit overall average exposures as much as or more than the sector-specific and concentration-standards approaches.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Location-specific strategies for eliminating US national racial-ethnic PM2.5 exposure inequality

Wang

Apte

Hill

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Zhu et al (33) projected that the PM 2.5 disparities in California will generally reduce under decarbonization scenarios in 2050, with important heterogeneity across regions and scenarios. Retrospectively, a limited number of studies used econometric methods to assess the implications of a subset of climate mitigation strategies (including emission trading or electric vehicle deployment) on inequities related to air pollutant emissions (34)(35)(36)(37). However, these studies often do not account for the full complexity in the formation and transport of air pollution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of wind power on air quality, premature mortality, and exposure disparities in the United States

2022

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Understanding impacts of renewable energy on air quality and associated human exposures is essential for informing future policy. We estimate the impacts of U.S. wind power on air quality and pollution exposure disparities using hourly data from 2011 to 2017 and detailed atmospheric chemistry modeling. Wind power associated with renewable portfolio standards in 2014 resulted in $2.0 billion in health benefits from improved air quality. A total of 29% and 32% of these health benefits accrued to racial/ethnic minority and low-income populations respectively, below a 2021 target by the Biden administration that 40% of the overall benefits of future federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities. Wind power worsened exposure disparities among racial and income groups in some states but improved them in others. Health benefits could be up to $8.4 billion if displacement of fossil fuel generators prioritized those with higher health damages. However, strategies that maximize total health benefits would not mitigate pollution disparities, suggesting that more targeted measures are needed.

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Do Environmental Markets Cause Environmental Injustice? Evidence from California's Carbon Market

Cited by 2 publications

References 42 publications

Location-specific strategies for eliminating US national racial-ethnic PM2.5 exposure inequality

Location-specific strategies for eliminating US national racial-ethnic PM2.5 exposure inequality

Impacts of wind power on air quality, premature mortality, and exposure disparities in the United States

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