Aerosols, Global Climate, and the Human Health Co-Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation - Aerosols: Measurement, Dosimetry, and Health Effects - page 351

Air quality policies
Aim: Reduce pollutant levels.
Regional and national
efforts.
(e.g., changes in public
transportation, vehicle fleet)

Climate change policies
Aim: Reduce GHG emissions.
Regional, national, and
international efforts.
(e.g., carbon tax)

1 e.g., air quality

modeling,
source-receptor matrix

e.g., explicit
target,
modeling systems

Air pollutant
levels
(e.g., PM, O 3 ,
SO 2 , NO 2 , etc.)

Greenhouse gas
levels

2

e.g ., concentration-response
functions from epidemiology

Future Short-term

Human health response
(e.g., premature mortality,
frequency of asthma attacks)

e.g., Estimate of
cost of purchase,
installation, and
maintenance of
air pollution
control
technology

3

e.g., willingness-to-pay,
cost-of-illness

e.g., Evaluation
of mitigation
costs by sector

Economic assessment
valuation of avoided
adverse health outcomes,
cost of policy implementation

FIGURE 13.4 Framework of air pollution co-beneit estimation. (From Bell, M.L. et al., Environ. Health ,

7, 41, 2008.)

epidemiological studies on ambient air pollution and health. The third stage utilizes a variety of
techniques to translate health beneits into monetary terms. Potential additional steps include sen-
sitivity analysis, such as applying multiple climate change scenarios or concentration-response
functions for health effects.

13.5.2 s tudies oF H ealtH and a ir P ollution b eneFits oF c liMate c Hange M itigation
A variety of studies have been conducted to estimate the health and air pollution ancillary beneits
from GHG reduction, with a wide range of methods and study areas. Energy scenarios, emission
inventories, and global change and regional air quality modeling systems have been linked to esti-
mate the short-term incremental changes in public health and the environment that could result from
various GHG mitigation policies (Burtraw and Toman, 1997; McCarthy et al., 2001).
There are now numerous analyses indicating substantial health co-beneits from reductions in
PM pollution, which can be induced by GHG mitigation measures that involve reductions in fos-
sil fuel combustion emissions. As shown in Figure 13.5, a study of New York City and three Latin
American cities identiied signiicant health beneits from reducing GHG, including about 64,000
cases of avoided premature mortality over a 20 year period (Cifuentes et al., 2001a). Countrywide