The Health Impacts of Coal-Fired Power Plants in India and the Co-benefits of Greenhouse Gas Reductions
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 111,
May 2021
(pp. 386-90)
Abstract
Under the Paris Agreement, India has pledged that 40 percent of its electricity generating capacity will come from non-fossil-fuel sources by the year 2030; however, this pledge does not limit total coal-fired generating capacity. As of 2019, planned increases in coal-fired capacity totaled 95 gigawatts—46 percent of installed coal-fired capacity in 2018. In this paper, we estimate the carbon dioxide benefits and health co-benefits of not building these plants. We also estimate the mortality impacts of the 2018 stock of coal-fired power plants and use it to calculate the tax on electricity generation from coal that would internalize these damages.Citation
Cropper, Maureen, Ryna Cui, Sarath Guttikunda, Nate Hultman, Puja Jawahar, Yongjoon Park, Xinlu Yao, and Xiaopeng Song. 2021. "The Health Impacts of Coal-Fired Power Plants in India and the Co-benefits of Greenhouse Gas Reductions." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 111: 386-90. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20211034Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I12 Health Behavior
- I15 Health and Economic Development
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- Q58 Environmental Economics: Government Policy
- O13 Economic Development: Agriculture; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Other Primary Products
- Q48 Energy: Government Policy
- H23 Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies