ESTIMATING HEALTH CO-BENEFITS OF CLIMATE POLICIES IN CHINA: AN APPLICATION OF THE REGIONAL EMISSIONS-AIR QUALITY-CLIMATE-HEALTH (REACH) FRAMEWORK
Chenfei Qu, Xi Yang, Da Zhang, Xiliang Zhang
Abstract
Climate policies can bring local air quality and health co-benefits, which may partially or entirely offset the costs of implementing these policies. In this study, we introduce an integrated health co-benefits assessment model, the Regional Emissions-Air quality-Climate-Health (REACH) Modeling Framework, which is capable of evaluating the impact of policies on air pollution-related mortality and morbidity in the whole economic system overtime at the provincial level for China. We first provide a detailed description of the modeling framework and conduct a case study to estimate the health benefits of different climate policy scenarios. We show that a scenario consistent with the 2 ∘ C target that peaks China’s emissions before 2025 could avoid around 190 thousand premature deaths in 2030. The health benefits could partially or fully cover the policy costs under different assumptions of the value of a statistical life (VSL). Our framework also illustrates that estimated costs and health benefits distribute unevenly across regions in China.