期刊
ATMOSPHERE
卷 12, 期 8, 页码 -出版社
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/atmos12080951
关键词
air pollution; COVID-19; social distancing; carbon emissions
资金
- Political Economics Initiative at the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago
This paper examines the impact of stay-at-home policies during the COVID-19 pandemic on emissions and health effects in the United States, finding significant reductions in air pollution, premature deaths, and CO2 emissions from personal vehicle travel and electricity consumption.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in stay-at-home policies and other social distancing behaviors in the United States in spring of 2020. This paper examines the impact that these actions had on emissions and expected health effects through reduced personal vehicle travel and electricity consumption. Using daily cell phone mobility data for each U.S. county, we find that vehicle travel dropped about 40% by mid-April across the nation. States that imposed stay-at-home policies before March 28 decreased travel slightly more than other states, but travel in all states decreased significantly. Using data on hourly electricity consumption by electricity region (e.g., balancing authority), we find that electricity consumption fell about 6% on average by mid-April with substantial heterogeneity. Given these decreases in travel and electricity use, we estimate the county-level expected improvements in air quality, and, therefore, expected declines in mortality. Overall, we estimate that, for a month of social distancing, the expected premature deaths due to air pollution from personal vehicle travel and electricity consumption declined by approximately 360 deaths, or about 25% of the baseline 1500 deaths. In addition, we estimate that CO2 emissions from these sources fell by 46 million metric tons (a reduction of approximately 19%) over the same time frame.
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