Clean energy policy can provide substantial health benefits through improved air quality. As ambitious clean energy proposals are increasingly considered and adopted across the United States (US), quantifying the benefits of removal of such large air pollution emissions sources is crucial to understanding potential societal impacts of such policy. In this study, we estimate health benefits resulting from the elimination of emissions of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides from the electric power, transportation, building, and industrial sectors in the contiguous US. We use EPA's CO‐Benefits Risk Assessment screening tool to estimate health benefits resulting from the removal of PM_2.5‐related emissions from these energy‐related sectors. We find that nationwide efforts to eliminate energy‐related emissions could prevent 53,200 (95% CI: 46,900–59,400) premature deaths each year and provide $608 billion ($537–$678 billion) in benefits from avoided PM_2.5‐related illness and death. We also find that an average of 69% (range: 32%–95%) of the health benefits from emissions removal remain in the emitting region. Our study provides an indication of the potential scale and distribution of public health benefits that could result from ambitious regional and nationwide clean energy and climate mitigation policy.

The climate crisis threatens to exacerbate numerous climate-sensitive health risks, including heatwave mortality, malnutrition from reduced crop yields, water- and vector-borne infectious diseases, and respiratory illness from smog, ozone, allergenic pollen, and wildfires. Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stress the urgent need for action to mitigate climate change, underscoring the need for more scientific assessment of the benefits of climate action for health and wellbeing. Project Drawdown has analyzed more than 80 solutions to address climate change, building on existing technologies and practices, that could be scaled to collectively limit warming to between 1.5° and 2 °C above preindustrial levels. The solutions span nine major sectors and are aggregated into three groups: reducing the sources of emissions, maintaining and enhancing carbon sinks, and addressing social inequities. Here we present an overview of how climate solutions in these three areas can benefit human health through improved air quality, increased physical activity, healthier diets, reduced risk of infectious disease, and improved sexual and reproductive health, and universal education. We find that the health benefits of a low-carbon society are more substantial and more numerous than previously realized and should be central to policies addressing climate change. Much of the existing literature focuses on health effects in high-income countries, however, and more research is needed on health and equity implications of climate solutions, especially in the Global South. We conclude that adding the myriad health benefits across multiple climate change solutions can likely add impetus to move climate policies faster and further.

Air pollution exposure poses health and economic burdens, but most assessments of air pollution in the United States do not account for known variation in costs of hospital admissions and emergency department (ED) visits by race/ethnicity or region, nor do they include ambulatory care and other health-related costs. Given that medical cost data are used regularly in policy and regulatory analyses of air pollution, it is important that these data be finely resolved and comprehensive. We estimate hospital admission and ED visit costs by region, race/ethnicity, and payer type for cardiovascular, respiratory, and neurological health outcomes associated with fine particulate matter (PM _2.5 ) exposure that are included in the Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program–Community Edition. We also determine additional costs associated with outpatient surgeries, home health care, and prescribed medicines. We then apply these cost data to PM _2.5 air quality improvement scenarios to assess their effect on monetized benefit totals. Regional hospital admission and ED visit costs differ from the national average by as much as −34% to +65%. Asian Americans incur the highest per-event costs for most outcomes. White and Black Americans generally incur below-average per-event costs for hospital admissions, and Black and Hispanic Americans incur below-average per-event costs for ED visits. Additional costs greatly increase the total cost of medical events for cardiovascular disease outcomes and hospital admissions for Parkinson’s disease and respiratory diseases (ages ⩽ 18). When stratifying medical costs by race/ethnicity and region and including additional costs, monetized benefits increase by 64% under the revised National Ambient Air Quality Standard for annual PM _2.5 exposure. The effect of cost stratification is less pronounced in scenarios in which PM _2.5 reductions are more widespread. We recommend that stratified health cost data be considered for use in policy and regulatory analysis, particularly in work considering health equity implications of air pollution exposure.