The impact of human health co-benefits on evaluations of global climate policy

Scovronick, Noah; Budolfson, Mark; Dennig, Francis; Errickson, Frank; Fleurbaey, Marc; Peng, Wei; Socolow, Robert H.; Spears, Dean; Wagner, Fabian

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09499-x

Cited by 125 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 44 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…the positive health effects of co-pollutant reduction) from 'deep decarbonization' policies in the US concluded that these policies could prevent on average 36 000 premature deaths annually from 2016 to 2030, and that the monetized value of the avoided early deaths would surpass the climate benefits of these policies, as quantified by applying the US government's SCC (Shindell et al 2016). Similar findings have been reported globally (Parry et al 2014, Scovronick et al 2019, as well as regionally, e.g. for the European Union (Berk et al 2006) and China (Li et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 53%

The co-pollutant cost of carbon emissions: an analysis of the US electric power generation sector

Dedoussi

Allroggen

Flanagan³

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Fossil fuel combustion releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere along with co-pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and others. These emissions result in environmental externalities primarily in terms of climate and air quality. Here we quantify the cost of co-pollutant emissions per ton of CO 2 emissions from US electric power generation. We measure the co-pollutant cost of carbon (CPCC) as the total value of statistical life associated with US-based premature mortalities attributable to co-pollutant emissions, per mass of CO 2 . We find an average CPCC of ∼$45 per metric ton (mt) of CO 2 for the year 2011 (in 2017 USD). This is ∼20% higher than the central Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) measure of climate damages that was used by the Obama administration in its regulatory impact analysis for the Clean Power Plan (CPP), and >8 times higher than the SCC used by the Trump administration in its analysis for the Plan's repeal. At the state-level, the CPCC ranged from ∼$7/mt CO 2 for Arizona to ∼$96/mt CO 2 for New Jersey. We calculate the CPCC trends from 2002 to 2017 and find a 71% decrease at the national level, contributing to total savings of ∼$1 trillion in averted mortality from power plant emissions over this period. By decomposing the aggregate and fuelspecific co-pollutant intensities into simultaneous (CO 2 -driven) and autonomous components, we conclude that the CPCC trends originated mainly from targeted efforts to reduce co-pollutant emissions, e.g. through fuel switching (from coal to natural gas) and autonomous changes in copollutant emissions. The results suggest that the overall benefit to society from policies to curtail carbon emissions may be enhanced by focusing on pollution sources where the associated air-quality co-benefits are greatest. At the same time, continued efforts to reduce co-pollutant intensities, if technologically feasible, could help to mitigate the air-quality damages of the CPP's repeal and replacement.

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 53%

The co-pollutant cost of carbon emissions: an analysis of the US electric power generation sector

Dedoussi

Allroggen

Flanagan³

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Second, consumers may benefit from communications that emphasize the health and environmental benefits of rules that focus on, for example, replacing meat products with tofu or quorn (Watts et al 2015, Scovronick et al 2019. Food products that have positive health impacts tend to be perceived as having positive environmental impacts as well (Gorissen andWeijters 2016, Perkovic andOrquin 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public perceptions of how to reduce carbon footprints of consumer food choices

Kause

Bruin

Millward-Hopkins

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Carbon footprints-the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with consumer food choicessubstantially contribute to climate change. Life cycle analyses from climate and environmental sciences have identified effective rules for reducing these food-related GHG emissions, including eating seasonal produce and replacing dairy and red meat with plant-based products. In a national UK survey, we studied how many and which rules our participants generated for reducing GHG emissions of produce, dairy, and protein-rich products. We also asked participants to estimate GHG emission reductions associated with pre-selected rules, expressed in either grams or percentages. We found that participants generated few and relatively less effective rules, including ambiguous ones like 'Buy local'. Furthermore, participants' numerical estimates of pre-selected rules were less accurate when they assessed GHG emission reductions in grams rather than in percentages. Findings suggest a need for communicating fewer rules in percentages, for informing consumers about reducing food-related GHG emissions.

show abstract

“…To compute the evolution of temperature used to determine damages (Equation 4) we replace the atmospheric module of DICE by following Scovronick et al 49 and making use of the FAIR model detailed in Miller et al 23 FAIR is a more sophisticated earth science model (ESM) than the native DICE ESM. The two primary innovations over DICE's ESM are that (i) a more comprehensive set of GHGs are explicitly modeled and (ii) the impulse response function to a pulse of emissions is state dependent (i.e., the forcings of CH4, CO2, and N20 for a given atmospheric concentration depend on the concentration of other gases) and through this more accurate.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The high climate costs of animal-based foods

Errickson¹,

Kuruc²,

McFadden³

2020

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite mounting evidence that reductions in agricultural emissions must be part of the global climate agenda, the economic benefits of such reductions have not yet been quantified in a manner appropriate for rigorous cost-benefit analyses. Here we couple the global agricultural and industrial economies in a leading macroeconomic-climate model to quantify the climate costs of animal-based foods along several dimensions. Under representative temperature targets, a transition to veganism alleviates necessary reductions of industrial emissions by 25 percent. Under a business-as-usual pathway, standard diets high in animal protein contribute nearly $100 per person, per year in climate damages; about two-thirds of the damages from the average passenger vehicle in the United States. At the product level, the true cost of a serving of beef is 62% more than producers now face. Disaggregating to the regional level, we highlight where food policy could provide the highest social return.

show abstract

The impact of human health co-benefits on evaluations of global climate policy

Cited by 125 publications

References 44 publications

The co-pollutant cost of carbon emissions: an analysis of the US electric power generation sector

The co-pollutant cost of carbon emissions: an analysis of the US electric power generation sector

Public perceptions of how to reduce carbon footprints of consumer food choices

The high climate costs of animal-based foods

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About