Comparing climate policy co-benefits in the United States and China
Abstract
We use modeling approaches that integrate atmospheric chemistry, economic analysis, and health impacts calculations to evaluate and compare the co-benefits of greenhouse gas reduction policies for the U.S. and China. Climate policies can have a variety of co-benefits for air quality, in particular on the concentrations of health-damaging pollutants O3 and PM2.5 as well as toxic pollutants such as mercury. Co-benefits. Controlling CO2 sources such as power plants and vehicles can lead to concomitant reductions in other pollutants such as SO2, NOx, and Hg. Here, we present and discuss our evaluations of co-benefits in the U.S. and China, at both national and regional (state/provincial) scales. In particular, we assess how policy design, stringency, and energy system characteristics affect projected co-benefits and their valuation for human health. We find that at the national scale in both the U.S. and China, monetized co-benefits can offset the costs of carbon policies. U.S. co-benefits exhibit diminishing returns to projected increases in policy stringency, while Chinese co-benefits show different behavior. The magnitude of health-related co-benefits is sensitive to the economic valuation methodology, and to the choice of health impact function, with China-specific functions yielding substantially less co-benefit than those typically used in the U.S. In both cases, we see overall national-scale co-benefits but substantial regional variation at sub-national scales, illustrating the benefits of coupled atmospheric-economic analysis.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.A31J..02S
- Keywords:
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- 0345 Pollution: urban and regional;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 3355 Regional modeling;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 6344 System operation and management;
- POLICY SCIENCES