Chapter 9: Sector Costs and Ancillary Benefits of Mitigation
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9.2 Economic, Social and Environmental Impacts of Policies and Measures on Prices, Economic Output, Employment, Competitiveness and Trade Relations at the Sector and Sub-sector Levels
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9.2.10 Households
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9.2.10.4 Ancillary Benefits for Households
A major ancillary benefit of GHG mitigation is reductions in the emissions of local air pollutants. Glomsro et al. (1990) have indicated that improved health conditions as a consequence of improved air quality, etc., could offset roughly twothirds of the calculated GDP loss arising out of policies to reduce emissions. Alfsen et al. (1995) indicate a 6 to 10% reduction in SO2 and NOx emissions by the year 2000 as a result of an energy tax of US$3/barrel in 1993 and increasing by US$1 in each subsequent year to 2000.
Transport sector mitigation could imply substantial price increases with associated negative political, economic, and social implications, such as hardship for low-income rural motorists without access to public transport (Koopman and Denis, 1995; Dargay and Gately, 1997). But the option of using public transport could benefit the lower income sections of society, especially in developing countries, along with associated reduction in emission of CO, NOx and SO2 (Bose and Srinivasachary, 1997). Lower fuel use by road transportation could have substantial health benefits in urban areas (Pearce, 1996; Zaim, 1997).
Some of the indirect benefits of GHG mitigation of fuel switching and efficient devices in the household sectors, typically in developing countries, include:
- improved indoor air quality;
- higher quality of life (simplifying household chores, better hygiene, and easier cleaning);
- reduced fuel demand with economic and time-saving benefits to the household (one study in Tanzania reported that women using wood as fuel spend 12 hours a week to collect it (Gopalan and Saksena, 1999));
- increased sustainability of local natural resources; and
- reductions in the adverse effects of biomass use on human health (WHO, 1992).
These points are particularly relevant in the case of biomassburning stoves (Sathaye and Tyler, 1991; Smith 1996). Gopalan and Saksena (1999) report that the level of exposure to key pollutants in rural households can be 10 to 100 times higher than the health-related guidelines of the WHO.
