Climate, Economics and Health: Adding air quality impacts into social cost of carbon estimates

Increased exposure to outdoor air pollution is one of the primary mechanisms for adverse health impacts from climate change. It affects all regions of the world and is a strong motivation arguing for more aggressive climate mitigation efforts. However, despite its overall importance, air quality impacts are currently not included in the economic models and policy tools used to quantify the benefits of prospective climate policies. In response to the recommendations from a recent expert panel, the project team and stakeholders will carry out the necessary work to incorporate changes in air quality, and its associated health impacts, into estimates of the social cost of greenhouse used by federal policymakers in the US and Germany. The project consists of four inter-related components including: delineating which climate-related air quality impacts are suitable for inclusion into social cost of greenhouse gas estimates; quantification of the impacts of unit changes in temperature on ambient pollutant concentrations (primarily mediated through changes in wildland fire emissions and temperature impacts on ground-level ozone); determination of changes in health impacts attributable to climate-related changes in air quality; and incorporation of health impacts of air pollution into the GIVE model to estimate social cost of greenhouse gas values.