Abstract
The health co-benefits of mitigation strategies across different regions of the world are compared with the mitigation costs using state-of-the-art modelling and health benefit estimation methods. Global co-benefits exceed mitigation costs for both the 2 °C and 1.5 °C targets. At the national/regional level the co-benefits only exceed the mitigation costs of India. In other regions they still make a major contribution to reducing overall costs. Given these findings the chapter examines why co-benefits have played a small role in climate policy. Reasons include interpretations of the value of the health co-benefits, especially premature mortality, not accounting for some important non-health economic co-benefits and the asymmetry between diffuse co-benefits versus concentrated mitigation costs. The chapter offers some ways of addressing these factors to make co-benefits more central in climate policy.
The earlier part of this chapter draws significantly on joint work with our colleagues at BC3, namely Mikel Gonzalez, Inaki Arto and Cristina Pizarro-Irizar. We gratefully acknowledge their contribution as well all other co-authors of the Markandya et al. (2018) paper referenced here.
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Notes
- 1.
The two terms are used interchangeably in this chapter.
- 2.
This chapter uses material prepared for the Markandya et al. (2018) paper but not published in the article.
- 3.
Further details of the model can be found in Van Dingenen et al. (2018).
- 4.
For O3 coverage is for respiratory disease and for PM it is for ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, lung cancer, and acute lower respiratory airway infections.
- 5.
See https://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at/SspDb/dsd?Action=htmlpage&page=about. An important part of the SSP scenario is the emissions factors over time. For details of these see Rao et al. (2017).
- 6.
If the reduction is achieved through a global carbon tax the total cost is independent of the distribution of the burden. With less efficient tools for attaining the reduction, the cost can depend to some extent on the distribution.
- 7.
The two excluded allocations are ones involving very unequal allocations to developed countries. Moreover, to be realized they require huge negative emissions, which is unrealistic.
- 8.
All costs are discounted at 3%. The impact of the choice of the discount rate is discussed later.
- 9.
Costs are higher under the CAP scenario because under that scenario the total reduction in emissions to 2050 is greatest. Although total emissions reductions to 2100 are the same under all three scenarios, the CAP rule allocates in inverse proportion to GDP. With growing GDP and convergence in GDP per capita over the century the total allocations post 2050 are greater and pre 2050 smaller, making the required reduction pre-2050 larger.
- 10.
The formula proposed by the OECD for calculating the VSL in country i is: \( {VSL}_i={VSL}_{OECD}{\left[\frac{GDPPC_i}{GDPPC_{OECD}}\right]}^{0.8} \). GDPPC is the per capita GDP. 0.8 is referred to as the elasticity of VSL with respect to GDPPC. The use of a single value such as this has recently been questioned, it being argued that the value should vary regionally. See Viscusi and Masterman (2017).
- 11.
A lower value to lives saved is arrived at if one uses a formula based on GDP per capita but this has less justification on social grounds, as it is based on the output value of individuals and would by implication place no value on the old and the sick.
- 12.
A higher discount rate raises the relative importance of health co-benefits in China slightly but reduces it in all other countries/regions. This reflects the relative time profiles of co-benefits relative to mitigation costs, which are influenced by many factors.
- 13.
The value attached to a reduction in mortality of X% is the VSL times X%.
- 14.
Household air pollution associated with the use of solid biofuels for cooking and heating in homes also is a major source of premature mortality in the developing world, with an estimated 2.5 million premature deaths in 2016 according to GBD.
- 15.
This can help reduce exposure to pollutant concentrations but account has to be taken of air movement within airsheds.
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Markandya, A., Sampedro, J. (2020). Health Co-benefits of Climate Mitigation Policies: Why Is It So Hard to Convince Policy-Makers of Them and What Can Be Done to Change That?. In: Buchholz, W., Markandya, A., Rübbelke, D., Vögele, S. (eds) Ancillary Benefits of Climate Policy. Springer Climate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30978-7_13
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