Lanterna Rally

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Published: 2002

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A number of actions to slow atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from fossil fuel use also could reduce conventional air pollutants in the U.S. The benefits that result would be ''ancillary'' to greenhouse gas abatement. Moreover, the benefits would tend to accrue locally and in the near term, while benefits from reduced climate change mostly accrue globally and over a time frame of several decades or longer. A failure to adequately consider ancillary benefits could lead to an incorrect assessment of the ''net costs'' of mitigation policies--that is, the direct cost of climate policy less ancillary benefits that result from those policies--and an incorrect identification of ''no regrets'' levels of GHG mitigation. It also could lead to the choice of a policy that was unnecessarily expensive because of its failure to exploit fully potential ancillary benefits. The focus of this project was on reductions in carbon dioxide that would be achieved in the electricity sector. A detailed model of the electricity sector was extended and used to simulate a variety of policies aimed at reducing GHGs. The output from this model was evaluated using an integrated assessment model to account for atmospheric transport model for secondary particulates stemming from nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions. The resulting changes in atmospheric concentrations of particulates were fed into a health epidemiology model to estimate changes in health status, and these changes were valued in monetary terms using recent studies from environmental and health economics. The project resulted in two types of products. Infrastructure products include the extension of RFF's Haiku electricity market model to be able to accommodate a wide variety of environmental and economic policies. Infrastructure also includes revision to the Tracking and Analysis Framework (TAF), an integrated assessment model of the environmental effects of conventional pollutants. Both models have been employed in ongoing projects that are expected to yield major spin-offs. Published products include a number of conference papers, book chapters, and scholarly manuscripts.