Could Better Health Alone Pay for A Greener Tomorrow? MIT Researchers Investigate Cutting Carbon Emissions
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At the turn of the 21st century, as mankind met its ultimate reliance on fossil fuels, researchers found that increased carbon emissions from the burning of these fuels led to not only an increase in the global temperature (courtesy of the greenhouse effect), but also more than doubling of asthma cases and other respiratory diseases. But now, more than ten years later as the world has looked towards a more greener way of living, researchers are saying that the costly transitions towards smaller carbon footprints may in fact pay off in the end... maybe even paying for themselves in the process.
Looking at three similar policies all aimed at reducing carbon-emissions across the United States, researchers at MIT found that savings on costs related to increased respiratory illnesses and other healthcare services can in some cases exceed more than 10 times the cost of implementing the pricey policy itself. The paper, published yesterday morning, Aug. 24 in the journal Nature Climate Change, investigates the health effects that emissions from fossil fuels cause, looking to ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter as primary suspects, and analyzed the economic trade-offs between the change in policy and the healthcare costs.
"Carbon-reduction policies significantly improve air quality" co-author and assistant professor of atmospheric chemistry at MIT, Noelle Selin says. "In fact, policies aimed at cutting carbon emissions improve air quality by a similar amount as policies specifically targeting air pollution."
The three climate policies included a clean-energy standard, a transportation policy, and a cap-and-trade program, all abiding by clean-energy standards similar to those proposed in the Environmental Protection Agency's "Clean Power Plan". All three policies resulted in roughly similar effects with constant costs associated to medical care viewed throughout, however, depending on the costs of the policy, the researchers found that anywhere between 26% and 1,150% of the costs could be recuperated by reappropriating healthcare savings.
With average savings estimated at roughly $247 billion, the $14 billion cost of the cap-and-trade policy and the $208 billion cost of the clean energy standard program were easily covered, while the transportation policy which Implemented rigid fuel-economy requirements was only able to recoup roughly a quarter of the estimated $1 trillion in costs.
But while the study proved an effective source of outcome in the end, the researchers insist that the current policies and models that they tested are only a stepping stone on the path to a greener tomorrow.
"While air-pollution benefits can help motivate carbon policies today, these carbon policies are just the first step" Selin says. "To manage climate change, we'll have to make carbon cuts that go beyond the initial reductions that lead to the largest air-pollution benefits."
MIT researchers are hopeful that as the nation moves forward towards the caps that will be implemented for federal emissions in 2016, that states will find more efficient energy plans that will not only benefit the economic climate but also the health of their citizens.
