How to regulate exposure to air pollution
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Turner-and-Barrage-2020-Policy-Brief.pdf
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- Airborne particulates kill millions of people each year. Analysis of global data describing particulate exposure suggests that an important component of exposure is determined by country-level policies.
- Statistically, the three best predictors of mean particulate exposure in a country are: Coal consumption, organic fuel consumption/agricultural burning, and urban share of population.
- Exposure depends on having pollution and people in the same location. There is wide variation across countries in how sensitive exposure is to emissions.
- Reducing emissions will generally involve reductions of economic output. It is important that particulates are regulated with taxes resulting in tax revenue that can be used for other purposes.
- This policy brief provides an introduction to our model-based evaluation of three broad classes of particulates policies: Taxes on coal, oil, and agricultural burning for 31 countries. This should inform policymakers about the relative importance and cost effectiveness of regulating each class of particulate emissions.