Nationwide and Regional PM_2.5‐Related Air Quality Health Benefits From the Removal of Energy‐Related Emissions in the United States

Abstract

There is a clean energy transition underway in the United States (US). Since 2015, about a dozen states and the District of Columbia (DC) and Puerto Rico have set targets requiring that all their electricity production come from clean or carbon-free sources, in many cases by between 2040 and 2050, and other states have set similar non-binding goals (Paulos et al., 2021). Such ambitious clean energy proposals are most common in the electric power sector, but others focus on transportation. In 2020, California set a goal through executive action requiring that all new passenger vehicles sold by 2035 be zero-emission (California Executive Order N-79-20, 2020). Some pledges are even starting to extend to the whole of the economy. Governors in California, Louisiana, and Michigan have issued executive orders calling for economy-wide carbon neutrality, and in 2021 Massachusetts became the first state to pass legislation aimed at reaching net-zero GHG emissions statewide (Paulos et al., 2021). There is also renewed interest in climate and clean energy policy at the federal level. The Biden administration has called for 100% carbon-free electricity nationwide by 2035, a 50%-52% reduction from 2005 levels in economy-wide GHG emissions by 2030, and net-zero emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050 (The White House, 2021). Despite these promising goals, the current pace of decarbonization in the US is still incompatible with a world in which global warming is limited to 1.5°C or 2°C above preindustrial levels, the targets set in the Paris Agreement

U.S. decarbonization impacts on air quality and environmental justice

“…This scenario leads to air quality improvement in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (figure 2(b)), states in the Rust Belt with high levels of coal combustion for electricity generation. Other studies have also found this region to have high cobenefits from clean electricity (Millstein et al 2017, Abel et al 2018, Buonocore et al 2019, Mailloux et al 2022. The northern half of the U.S. has a larger White population, including the states located in the Rust Belt (figure 2(d)).…”

“…While the county-scale of COBRA limits urban-scale analysis, the resolution may be compared with county-scale demographic data, consistent with previous nationwide EJ research (Miranda et al 2011, Rowangould 2013, Clark et al 2014. COBRA has been used to quantify air quality co-benefits in research applications at various scales and policy evaluations: (Mailloux et al 2022). COBRA has also previously been used to investigate PM 2.5 exposure to socially vulnerable populations from prescribed fire smoke, which includes race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and other demographics (Afrin and Garcia-Menendez 2021).…”

Environmental Justice and Carbon Pricing: Can They Be Reconciled?

“…[43] The death toll is especially high in China, India, and other newly industrializing countries, but air pollution causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in high-income countries, too, including 38 000 per year in the United States according to WHO estimates, [44] and possibly more. [45] The central objection to carbon pricing voiced by EJ advocates has been that it could widen pollution exposure disparities. Carbon pricing lets polluters decide whether, where, and how to curtail emissions or choose instead to pay the price.…”

“…[ 43 ] The death toll is especially high in China, India, and other newly industrializing countries, but air pollution causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in high‐income countries, too, including 38 000 per year in the United States according to WHO estimates, [ 44 ] and possibly more. [ 45 ]…”

The Unintended Benefits of the Conservation Reserve Program for Air Quality

“…Non-accidental mortality attributable to specified changes in CRP and PDSI are estimated using the formulas and parameters developed by Burnett et al (2018). The concentration-response function published in that work is formulated using results from 41 cohorts across 16 countries and has been used previously in U.S.-specific health effects research (e.g., Mailloux et al, 2022). The population-wide hazard ratio, predicted annual average fine particulate matter concentrations, and baseline non-accidental county mortality incidence counts were used to estimate excess mortality in three counterfactual scenarios; Scenario 1 (all CRP removed, i.e., all available farmland is under cultivation); Scenario 2 (a decrease of 4 on the PDSI scale); and Scenario 3 (a combination of Scenarios 1 and 2).…”