LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78713-8925, USA.
Environ Int. 2012 Feb;39(1):103-10. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2011.10.003. Epub 2011 Nov 13.
At Copenhagen, the developed countries agreed to provide up to $100 bn per year to finance climate change mitigation and adaptation by developing countries. Projects aimed at cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will need to be evaluated against dual criteria: from the viewpoint of the developed countries they must cut emissions of GHGs at reasonable cost, while host countries will assess their contribution to development, or simply their overall economic benefits. Co-benefits of some types of project will also be of interest to host countries: for example some projects will contribute to reducing air pollution, thus improving the health of the local population. This paper uses a simple damage function methodology to quantify some of the health co-benefits of replacing coal-fired generation with wind or small hydro in China. We estimate the monetary value of these co-benefits and find that it is probably small compared to the added costs. We have not made a full cost-benefit analysis of renewable energy in China as some likely co-benefits are omitted from our calculations. Our results are subject to considerable uncertainty however, after careful consideration of their likely accuracy and comparisons with other studies, we believe that they provide a good first cut estimate of co-benefits and are sufficiently robust to stand as a guide for policy makers. In addition to these empirical results, a key contribution made by the paper is to demonstrate a simple and reasonably accurate methodology for health benefits estimation that applies the most recent academic research in the field to the solution of an increasingly important problem.
在哥本哈根，发达国家同意每年提供高达 1000 亿美元，用于资助发展中国家应对气候变化的缓解和适应。旨在减少温室气体 (GHG) 排放的项目需要根据双重标准进行评估：从发达国家的角度来看，它们必须以合理的成本减少温室气体排放，而东道国将评估其对发展的贡献，或简单地评估其整体经济效益。某些类型项目的共同效益也将引起东道国的兴趣：例如，一些项目将有助于减少空气污染，从而改善当地居民的健康状况。本文使用简单的损害函数方法来量化中国用风能或小型水力发电替代燃煤发电的一些健康共同效益。我们估计了这些共同效益的货币价值，发现与增加的成本相比，这些价值可能很小。我们没有对中国可再生能源进行全面的成本效益分析，因为我们的计算中省略了一些可能的共同效益。然而，我们的结果存在很大的不确定性，经过仔细考虑其准确性和与其他研究的比较，我们认为它们提供了共同效益的良好初步估计，并且足够稳健，可以作为政策制定者的指南。除了这些实证结果外，本文的一个重要贡献是展示了一种简单且相当准确的健康效益估计方法，该方法将该领域最新的学术研究应用于解决一个日益重要的问题。
