In late last year, delegates from countries worldwide gathered in Paris and committed to reducing emissions significantly to keep global warming “well below a 2°C” rise compared to preindustrial levels. As a leading economic force, the United States is expected to spearhead the required emission reductions, approximately 80 percent by the mid-21st century compared to 2005 levels. Achieving this ambitious goal involves transitioning a significant chunk of U.S. power generation away from fossil fuels and converting most vehicles to electric power—a considerable challenge. Current energy policies primarily target short-term goals, and there is no comprehensive plan to achieve the ambitious 2°C target or even less ambitious emissions targets for the next 15 years. A major hurdle in transforming these pledges into effective actions is generating enough motivation to overhaul our energy and transportation systems.
Global climate change is often viewed as a distant issue, primarily impacting other regions, and is not prioritized over more immediate political issues. Many believe that implementing climate change mitigation policies requires altering our lifestyle and incurring current costs for benefits that largely benefit distant or future populations. Naturally, this does not rank high on most voters’ concerns. However, highlighting the immediate health advantages of transitioning to cleaner energy could reshape perceptions of climate change. A study published this week indicates that substantially reducing emissions from transportation and power generation could prevent approximately 175,000 premature deaths due to air pollution in the U.S. by 2030.
The study also finds that these health benefits could be valued at $250 billion annually, potentially outweighing the costs of transitioning energy systems. To delve into public perception and climate change, we researched the extensive effects of ambitious U.S. clean energy and transportation policies aligned with the 2°C goal. These policies offer climate advantages, with U.S. vehicle emission cuts contributing to roughly 0.03°C less global warming by 2030 (0.15°C by 2100) and energy emission cuts leading to 0.05°-0.07°C less warming (around 0.25°C by 2100). Although these reductions may seem minor, they are considerable given they arise from emission cuts in just one sector in one country.
Most benefits occur elsewhere and many years into the future. However, the policies significantly cut harmful air pollution domestically, primarily from vehicles, power plants, and industrial energy production. Medical studies clearly show that air pollution causes cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Seven years ago, the World Health Organization estimated that poor air quality killed about three million people per year. We now know it is the leading environmental cause of premature death globally, claiming around eight million lives annually, including 3.7 million from outdoor air pollution. Our study found that U.S. clean energy policies could prevent around 175,000 premature deaths by 2030, with about 22,000 fewer annually afterward.
Cleaner transportation could prevent about 120,000 premature deaths by 2030, with about 14,000 fewer annually afterward. Crucially, these benefits materialize almost immediately and mainly within the U.S. We assigned a dollar value to these benefits based on economic analyses that reflect society’s willingness to pay to reduce the risk of premature death, such as through workplace safety or healthcare. These short-term national health benefits are valued at approximately $250 billion per year from now until 2030, likely exceeding the transition costs to clean power and transportation.
Adding in the monetary value of long-term, global climate impacts, including damages to infrastructure, agriculture, and health, benefits can be five to ten times greater than the estimated implementation costs. Emissions from burning fossil fuels cause both climate change and air pollution, leading to extensive benefits from reductions. Climate pollutants contribute to more smog in polluted areas, wider ranges for tropical diseases, more severe storms, increased sea-level rise, and other damages. The WHO estimates climate change already causes over 150,000 deaths annually worldwide. Air pollution is even more deadly.
Even in a relatively clean country like the U.S., it kills about 130,000 people annually and hospitalizes another 330,000 for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases or nonfatal heart attacks. The vast damages from fossil fuel emissions indicate that reducing fossil fuel reliance has significant benefits. By neglecting environmental impacts in economic calculations, we omit the most effective way to incentivize pollution reduction. Instead, the societal cost is widespread, effectively subsidizing a highly profitable industry at the expense of our health. Our findings aren’t the only evidence showing large damages from environmental externalities related to fossil fuel burning. Last year, the International Monetary Fund reported fossil fuels are subsidized at roughly $10 million per minute globally, mainly due to their unaccounted-for impacts on local pollution and global warming.
Thus, the genuine costs of fossil fuels greatly exceed their market prices. Assessing dollar values on these impacts is crucial because even with thousands of deaths, society tends to undervalue widespread and chronic issues, often focusing instead on sudden, localized events despite their smaller impacts. For instance, over the last 11 years, faulty General Motors ignition switches were linked to about 20 deaths, prompting a massive recall, extensive media coverage, and a congressional hearing. Yet air pollution from GM vehicles during the same period caused about 40,000 deaths. The cause-and-effect linkage isn’t as straightforward as with the ignition switches, leading to an underestimation of the larger damages and overlooking that many routine deaths from heart and respiratory issues are actually pollution-induced.