International trade and air pollution: estimating the economic costs of air emissions from waterborne commerce vessels in the United States

Although there is a burgeoning literature on the effects of international trade on the environment, relatively little work has been done on where trade most directly effects the environment: the transportation sector. This article shows how international trade is affecting air pollution emissions in the United States' shipping sector. Recent work has shown that cargo ships have been long overlooked regarding their contribution to air pollution. Indeed, ship emissions have recently been deemed "the last unregulated source of traditional air pollutants". Air pollution from ships has a number of significant local, national, and global environmental effects. Building on past studies, we examine the economic costs of this increasing and unregulated form of environmental damage. We find that total emissions from ships are largely increasing due to the increase in foreign commerce (or international trade). The economic costs of SO2 pollution range from dollars 697 million to dollars 3.9 billion during the period examined, or dollars 77 to dollars 435 million on an annual basis. The bulk of the cost is from foreign commerce, where the annual costs average to dollars 42 to dollars 241 million. For NOx emissions the costs are dollars 3.7 billion over the entire period or dollars 412 million per year. Because foreign trade is driving the growth in US shipping, we also estimate the effect of the Uruguay Round on emissions. Separating out the effects of global trade agreements reveals that the trade agreement-led emissions amounted to dollars 96 to dollars 542 million for SO2 between 1993 and 2001, or dollars 10 to dollars 60 million per year. For NOx they were dollars 745 million for the whole period or dollars 82 million per year. Without adequate policy responses, we predict that these trends and costs will continue into the future.     

The benefits and costs of reducing emissions from the electricity sector

Recent federal policy proposals to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO(2)), nitrogen oxides (NO(x)), and mercury from the US electricity sector promise important improvements in air quality and reductions in acid deposition. The cost of achieving these reductions depends on the form and stringency of the regulation. In this research, we analyze the economic benefits and costs of the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) as characterized in the supplemental rule proposed in June 2004, and the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) as proposed in February 2004. The assessment integrates a model of the electricity sector, two models of atmospheric transport of air pollutants, and a model of environmental and public health endpoints affected by pollution. We model explicitly the emissions of SO(2), NO(x), mercury and carbon dioxide (CO(2)) and the effects of changes in emissions of SO(2) and NO(x) on environmental and public health. The manner in which mercury emissions are regulated will have important implications not only for the cost of the regulation, but also for emission levels for SO(2) and NO(x) and where those emissions are located. We find the economic benefits of CAIR and CAMR are far greater than the costs. Recent estimates of benefits of reductions in mercury and acidification indicate that our model captures the lion's share of quantifiable benefits. We also find that the EPA would have been justified on economic grounds in pursuing additional SO(2) emissions reductions beyond the requirements of CAIR.     

Estimating the benefits of pollution reduction on agricultural yields: Taiwan's air pollution emission fees program

Taiwan's implementation of the 1997 Air Pollution Emissions Fees Program will conceivably lead to long-term reductions in pollution emissions. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the benefits to Taiwan from the expected reduction in crop losses as a direct result of such a decrease in air pollution. We employ a demand-supply framework for rice production to estimate the change in social welfare resulting from changes in the concentration of certain pollutants in the atmosphere. Our empirical results show that, in the year 1997, social welfare increments resulting from the decline in sulfur dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere ranged between US dollars 946200 and US dollars 2435800. Meanwhile, during the same period, the increase in social welfare due to the decline in the ozone concentration in the atmosphere ranged between US dollars 838100 and US dollars 1927000. The average benefit from the reduction in both sulfur dioxide and ozone concentrations is calculated to be between US dollars 2.67 and US dollars 6.86 per acre (for sulfur dioxide), and from US dollars 2.36 to US dollars 5.43 per acre (for ozone).     

Constructing genuine savings indicators for Ireland, 1995-2005

In this paper we compute the genuine savings indicators for the Republic of Ireland over the period 1995-2005. We expand and improve existing World Bank's estimates by: a) using data collected from official Irish sources; b) employing the net present value method to assess resource depreciation; c) including external costs from SO(2) and NOx emissions; and d) estimating human capital accumulation using the returns to education. We also perform a sensitivity analysis to check the robustness of our estimates to different assumptions and parameters. Our estimates are consistently smaller than the World Bank's and negative in the first years of the period considered.     

2020年第一季度枣庄市PM2.5源解析的分析研究

为了评估分析枣庄市不同来源污染物排放强度削减与大气环境质量变化之间的关系,使用统计方法和正定矩阵因子分解法对枣庄市2020年第一季度大气污染变化特征和污染来源进行了解析,探究了枣庄市大气固体悬浮微粒浓度变化影响机制。结果表明:2020年第一季度PM2.5、PM10、NO2、SO2浓度较2019年同期显著下降,但枣庄市采暖季内社会活动造成的正常排放仍高于大气环境容量;受新冠疫情影响,2020年较2019年PM2.5源因子浓度削减最大的为机动车源(46.5%)和工业源(17.9%),应长期采取机动车减排、产业结构调整等措施,科学规划“十四五”大气污染防治。     

我国大气细颗粒物污染防治目标和控制措施研究

我国面临着严重的细颗粒物(PM2.5)污染问题,PM2.5对人体健康、能见度、气候变化、生态系统等均产生了不良影响。本文旨在提出我国PM2.5污染防治目标和控制措施,为从根本上改善空气质量提供科学依据。首先,本文提出了2020年和2030年我国PM2.5污染防治目标。其次,采用能源和污染排放技术模型,分情景预测了我国未来一次大气污染物排放量的变化趋势。基于情景预测结果和此前研究建立的一次污染物排放与PM2.5浓度间的非线性关系,确定了2020年—2030年与PM2.5浓度改善相适应的全国和重点区域大气污染物减排目标。最后,利用能源和污染排放技术模型,提出了实现大气污染物减排的技术措施和对策建议。研究表明,2030年全国二氧化硫、氮氧化物、一次PM2.5和挥发性有机物的排放量应分别比2012年至少削减51%、64%、53%和36%,氨排放量也要略有下降。对于污染严重的重点区域,必须采取更严格的控制力度。要实现上述减排,应加快能源结构调整,推进煤炭清洁高效集中可持续利用,建立"车-油-路"一体的移动源控制体系,并强化多源多污染物的末端控制。     

Dealing with electronic waste: modeling the costs and environmental benefits of computer monitor disposal

The importance of information technology to the world economy has brought about a surge in demand for electronic equipment. With rapid technological change, a growing fraction of the increasing stock of many types of electronics becomes obsolete each year. We model the costs and benefits of policies to manage 'e-waste' by focusing on a large component of the electronic waste stream-computer monitors-and the environmental concerns associated with disposal of the lead embodied in cathode ray tubes (CRTs) used in most monitors. We find that the benefits of avoiding health effects associated with CRT disposal appear far outweighed by the costs for a wide range of policies. For the stock of monitors disposed of in the United States in 1998, we find that policies restricting or banning some popular disposal options would increase disposal costs from about US dollar 1 per monitor to between US dollars 3 and US dollars 20 per monitor. Policies to promote a modest amount of recycling of monitor parts, including lead, can be less expensive. In all cases, however, the costs of the policies exceed the value of the avoided health effects of CRT disposal.     

A comparative study of US EPA 1996 and 1999 emission inventories in the west Gulf of Mexico coast region, USA

Emission inventory is one of the required inputs to air quality models. To assist in the urban and regional modeling efforts, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has compiled a National Emission Inventory (NEI) for criterion pollutants, and the precursors of ozone and particulate matter (PM). In December 2002, EPA released the 1999 NEI estimates (NEI99), which represent the most recent national emission data. However, the data sets are not in model-ready format for air quality simulations. This present work converts the NEI99 Final Version 2 data sets into Inventory Data Analyzer (IDA) format and processes the data using the Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE) modeling system to generate a gridded emission inventory in a domain covering the west Gulf Coast Region, USA. The spatial and diurnal emission characteristics of the gridded emission inventories are then assessed and compared with those of the National Emission Trend 1996 (NET96). The NEI99 database contains more complete emission records in both area and point sources. It is also found that NEI99 data exhibit greater emissions with respect to point and mobile sources but smaller emissions with respect to area sources when compared to the corresponding gridded NET96 data in the same study domain. The most distinct differences between the NEI99 and NET96 databases are CO emission of mobile sources, SO2 emissions of point sources, and VOC/PM/NH3/NOx emissions of area and non-road sources. The gridded NEI99 data show low VOC/NOx ratios (<2-5) in the urban areas of the study domain.     

World phosphate supply

The Bureau of Mines investigated the resources, costs, capacities, market relationships, and short- and long-run supply of phosphate rock and phosphoric acid. The 206 mines and deposits evaluated in 30 market economy countries (MECs) contain an estimated 35.1 billion tonnes of recoverable phosphate rock (demonstrated resource level). US resources are sufficient to satisfy both the domestic market and an export market for phosphate products well beyond 2000. Resource depletion at current producers, however, means new property development (with higher costs) will be required if US production levels are to be maintained. Existing worldwide capacity can satisfy expected demand through the early 1990s. Expansion at existing mines or low demand growth could mean no new property development is required before the late 1990s. Worldwide, almost $8 billion could be required for the development of new phosphate rock properties between now and 2000, given 3% annual growth in demand. Though profit may not be the principal motivation for development of government-owned operations, most properties that could develop in the 1990s would require price increases of 20–50% to break even. To earn a 15% rate of return on investment, prices must rise to nearly double the $23–271 tonne US price level of 1988. Current US phosphate rock and phosphoric acid producers appear to be competitive (on a variable cost basis) with many other suppliers in major markets. New US properties will have higher variable costs than current producers; however, they are competitive with most projected new foreign development. The US phosphoric acid industry will most likely face increased competition as more of the foreign phosphate rock producers develop the capacity to process rock into phosphoric acid and other fertilizer products.     

Quantifying the human health benefits of curbing air pollution in Shanghai

Urban development in the mega-cities of Asia has caused detrimental effects on the human health of its inhabitants through air pollution. However, averting these health damages by investing in clean energy and industrial technologies and measures can be expensive. Many cities do not have the capital to make such investments or may prefer to invest that capital elsewhere. In this article, we examine the city of Shanghai, China, and perform an illustrative cost/benefit analysis of air pollution control. Between 1995 and 2020 we expect that Shanghai will continue to grow rapidly. Increased demands for energy will cause increased use of fossil fuels and increased emissions of air pollutants. In this work, we examine emissions of particles smaller than 10 microm in diameter (PM10), which have been associated with inhalation health effects. We hypothesize the establishment of a new technology strategy for coal-fired power generation after 2010 and a new industrial coal-use policy. The health benefits of pollution reduction are compared with the investment costs for the new strategies. The study shows that the benefit-to-cost ratio is in the range of 1-5 for the power-sector initiative and 2-15 for the industrial-sector initiative. Thus, there appear to be considerable net benefits for these strategies, which could be very large depending on the valuation of health effects in China today and in the future. This study therefore provides economic grounds for supporting investments in air pollution control in developing cities like Shanghai.     

The economic effects of stratospheric ozone depletion on U.S. agriculture: a preliminary assessment

The adverse effects of stratospheric ozone depletion on human health and welfare is a major environmental concern. One potential welfare effect is reduction in plant productivity, including agricultural crops, due to increased UV-B radiation and tropospheric ozone formation. This paper evaluates the economic effects of potential changes in crop yields due to hypothetical depletions in stratospheric ozone over regions of the U.S.A. Results suggest that increases in tropospheric ozone due to a 15 per cent stratospheric ozone depletion may cause economic losses of around 0·9 billion dollars. Combined effects of both tropospheric ozone and UV-B radiation range from 1·3 to 2·5 billion dollars. These estimates are preliminary, given the high degree of uncertainty in key plant science and aerometric data.     

塔城市大气环境质量现状调查及污染防治对策探讨

对塔城市大气环境质量状况及3项大气污染物变化趋势进行调查分析,结果表明:塔城市大气污染物中TSP(PM10)浓度呈下降趋势,SO2呈略微上升趋势,NOX无显著变化。TSP(PM10)浓度在冬季采暖期和夏季秋季(10月)较高,为防治塔城市空气质量变劣,需要采取积极有效的预防措施,切实保护好人类赖以生存的生态环境。     

Evaluation of the First Phase of Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides Provisions of the 1990 Clean Air Act: A Plant-Based Approach

Electric power generating plants that use coal were among the key targets of Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act. Under the first phase of the act, 110 coal-fired electric power plants were required to reduce their sulfur dioxide emissions by 1995 and nitrogen oxide emissions by 1996. Phase 2 of the act requires even greater reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions by 2000 and nitrogen oxide emissions by 2008. This study examines whether the 107 targeted plants (three plants went off-line) have achieved the desired sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emission levels. The analysis of sulfur dioxide is based on data from 1990, 1995, and 1999. The findings show that although sulfur oxide increased by 3% from 1995 to 1999, it decreased by 45% over the 1990–1999 period at the firm level for the targeted firms. The findings also indicate that the overall reduction in sulfur dioxide was achieved by utilizing low sulfur coal and by purchasing emission allowances. So far as nitrogen oxides are concerned, there has been a reduction of 14% over the 1990–1999 period, of which 7% was achieved during the 1995–1999 period. An evaluation of emissions at the plant level indicates that several plants do not meet the emissions level for sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides. These results provide a mixed scorecard for reduction in emissions both for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Even though there is reduction in the emissions on an overall basis at the firm level, several plants that have not been able to reduce emissions deserve special attention to meet the goals of the act in reducing emissions.     

Early action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before the commitment period of the Kyoto protocol: advantages and disadvantages

Current “business as usual” projections suggest greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized nations will grow substantially over the next decade. However, if it comes into force, the Kyoto Protocol will require industrialized nations to reduce emissions to an average of 5% below 1990 levels in the 2008–2012 period. Taking early action to close this gap has a number of advantages. It reduces the risks of passing thresholds that trigger climate change “surprises.” Early action also increases future generations' ability to choose greater levels of climate protection, and it leads to faster reductions of other pollutants. From an economic sense, early action is important because it allows shifts to less carbon-intensive technologies during the course of normal capital stock turnover. Moreover, many options for emission reduction have negative costs, and thus are economically worthwhile, because of paybacks in energy costs, healthcare costs, and other benefits. Finally, early emission reductions enhance the probability of successful ratification and lower the risk of noncompliance with the protocol. We discuss policy approaches for the period prior to 2008. Disadvantages of the current proposals for Credit for Early Action are the possibility of adverse selection due to problematic baseline calculation methods as well as the distributionary impacts of allocating a part of the emissions budget already before 2008. One simple policy without drawbacks is the so-called baseline protection, which removes the disincentive to early action due to the expectation that businesses may, in the future, receive emission rights in proportion to past emissions. It is particularly important to adopt policies that shift investment in long-lived capital stock towards less carbon-intensive technologies and to encourage innovation and technology development that will reduce future compliance costs.     

Price-based vs. quantity-based environmental regulation under Knightian uncertainty: an info-gap robust satisficing perspective

Conventional wisdom among environmental economists is that the relative slopes of the marginal social benefit and marginal social cost functions determine whether a price-based or quantity-based environmental regulation leads to higher expected social welfare. We revisit the choice between price-based vs. quantity-based environmental regulation under Knightian uncertainty; that is, when uncertainty cannot be modeled with known moments of probability distributions. Under these circumstances, the policy objective cannot be to maximize the expected net benefits of emissions control. Instead, we evaluate an emissions tax and an aggregate abatement standard in terms of maximizing the range of uncertainty under which the welfare loss from error in the estimates of the marginal benefits and costs of emissions control can be limited. The main result of our work is that the same criterion involving the relative slopes of the marginal benefit and cost functions determines whether price-based or quantity-based control is more robust to unstructured uncertainty. Hence, not only does the relative slopes criterion lead to the policy that maximizes the expected net benefits of control under structured uncertainty, it also leads to the policy that maximizes robustness to unstructured uncertainty.     

Welfare gains from aluminium recycling in the USA

In this paper we estimate a flexible form cost function of the aluminium industry in the USA and use our estimates to obtain derived demand curves for aluminium inputs such as electricity and bauxite. We then calculate the welfare gains arising from decreased energy use when the level of secondary recycling is increased. The process is repeated for several model specifications. All of our tests, however, yield similar results and indicate that substitution of scrap for only 5% of the bauxite presently used in US aluminium manufacturing would result in annual savings of close to a quarter of a billion dollars.     

中国农业与工程机械尾气减排控制措施的费效分析

移动源尾气排放已成为我国空气污染的主要来源之一,相比于道路移动源来说,非道路移动源尾气排放的减排控制工作仍处于初级阶段。本研究就非道路移动源尾气减排控制的三种主要措施——整车淘汰、发动机更换以及发动机维修,对中国非道路工程和农业机械进行费效分析,探讨经济可行的控制途径。研究假设农业和工程机械的使用年限分别为15年和10年,同时假设采取减排措施后所有机械均达到国IV排放标准。研究表明,采取减排措施后,农业机械每年可减排NOx 40万～45万t,但PM污染物减排效益不明显;工程机械每年可减排NOx约52万t,且PM污染物每年可减排量约16万t,但费用可高达2000亿～25 000亿元,且不同措施的差别巨大,以整车淘汰费用最高。多数农业机械发动机维修所需费用高于发动机更换,相反,工程机械发动机更换所需费用高于发动机维修。因此,在采用减排措施和制定政策时,需要根据实际情况进行调整。对农业机械,采用发动机更换的减排方式更经济;对工程机械,采用发动机维修的减排措施更实惠。     

Evaluating the PM damage cost due to urban air pollution and vehicle emissions in Seoul, Korea

This study evaluated the prospective damage costs of PM(2.5) inhalation. We performed a health risk assessment based on an exposure-response function to estimate the annual population risk in the Seoul metropolitan city, Korea. Also, we estimated a willingness-to-pay (WTP) amount for reducing the mortality rate in order to evaluate a statistical life value. We combined the annual population risk and the value-of-statistical-life to calculate the damage cost estimate. In the health risk assessment, we applied the PM(2.5) relative risk to evaluate the annual population risk. We targeted an exposure population of 5,401,369 persons who were over the age of 30. Using a Monte-Carlo simulation for uncertainty analysis, we estimated that the population risk of PM(2.5) inhalation during a year in Seoul is 2181 premature deaths for acute exposure and 18,510 premature deaths for chronic exposure. The monthly average WTP for 5/1000 mortality reduction over ten years is $20.20 USD (95% C.I: $16.60-24.50) and the implied value-of-statistical-life (VSL) is $485,000 USD (95% C.I: $398,000-588,000). The damage cost estimate due to risk from PM(2.5) inhalation in Seoul is about $1057 million USD per year for acute exposure, and $8972 million USD per year for chronic exposure. It is important to note that this cost estimate does not reflect all health damage cost estimates in this urban area. This recommendation is a model for evaluating a mortality risk reduction and as such we must re-evaluate an integrated application of morbidity risk.     

Waste Management and Climate Change

Waste management has at least five types of impacts on climate change, attributable to: (1) landfill methane emissions; (2) reduction in industrial energy use and emissions due to recycling and waste reduction; (3) energy recovery from waste; (4) carbon sequestration in forests due to decreased demand for virgin paper; and (5) energy used in long-distance transport of waste: A recent USEPA study provides estimates of overall per-tonne greenhouse gas reductions due to recycling. Plausible calculations using these estimates suggest that countries such as the US or Australia could realise substantial greenhouse gas reductions through increased recycling, particularly of paper.     

Avoided deforestation as a greenhouse gas mitigation tool: economic issues

Tropical deforestation is a significant contributor to accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. GHG emissions from deforestation in the tropics were in the range of 1 to 2 Pg C yr(-1) for the 1990s, which is equivalent to as much as 25% of global anthropogenic GHG emissions. While there is growing interest in providing incentives to avoid deforestation and consequently reduce net carbon emissions, there is limited information available on the potential costs of these activities. This paper uses a global forestry and land use model to analyze the potential marginal costs of reducing net carbon emissions by avoiding deforestation in tropical countries. Our estimates suggest that about 0.1 Pg C yr(-1) of emissions reductions could be obtained over the next 30 to 50 yr for $5 per Mg C, and about 1.6 Pg C yr(-1) could be obtained over the same time frame for $100 per Mg C. In addition, the effects of carbon incentives on land use could be substantial. Relative to projected baseline conditions, we find that there would be around 3 million additional hectares (ha) of forestland in 2055 at $5 per Mg C and 422 million ha at $100 per Mg C. Estimates of reductions in area deforested, GHG mitigation potential, and annual land rental payments required are presented, all of which vary by region, carbon price paid, and time frame of mitigation.