DISES: Multi-scale modeling of interactions between climate change, air quality, and social inequalities

DISES：气候变化、空气质量和社会不平等之间相互作用的多尺度建模

• 批准号: 2420344
• 负责人: Mark Budolfson
• 金额: $ 151.33万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2026-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2420344&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISES; Multi; scale; modeling; interactions

Air pollutants and greenhouse gases share emission sources, including through the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas). Therefore, climate policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gases will produce the ‘co-benefit’ of also reducing air pollution, which is responsible for millions of deaths per year globally. However, little is known about how these co-benefits in air quality are likely to be distributed across populations, and how this distribution depends on choices between leading climate policy options. As one example, electrifying the transport sector will likely have much different implications for populations living near major roads – often disproportionately minorities and people of lower socioeconomic status – compared to a policy focusing on power plants. No systematic research has yet quantified these relationships and it is unclear which ways of pursuing climate policy will best achieve society’s health and equity objectives. This project will investigate these complex socio-environmental dynamics through a two-step process. First, the co-benefits of different climate policies as related to air quality will be estimated, along with how those policies will differentially impact health across socioeconomic subpopulations. Then that information will be used to examine how climate policy decisions may be optimized using models that include other aspects of the broader system, such as economic and demographic change, as well as the impacts of climate change itself. The human system and the atmospheric system are inextricably linked. Humans produce emissions, emissions alter the atmosphere, and the atmosphere in turn affects society, for example through exposure to air or water pollution, property damage from storms and wildfires, and impacts on agricultural yields and ecosystems. The level of anthropogenic emissions is modifiable through policy choices, which are themselves a complex output of interactions between social and ethical subsystems. This project will model the dynamics of this highly integrated system, with a focus on feedbacks between climate policy, air quality, and equity. The air quality ‘co-benefits’ of climate policy are important because of their policy relevance, given that these benefits are large, begin immediately, and occur locally. These impacts will not be uniform across regions in space or time, and so it is important to determine how climate action might alleviate or exacerbate existing inequalities in air pollution exposure. These relationships will be examined through novel air quality modeling and improvements to leading cost-benefit climate policy models. The goals are to : [1] Conduct multi-scale modeling to determine how air quality will change as a result of different climate policies, and how those changes will differentially impact socioeconomic subpopulations within cities, regions and countries; [2] Incorporate the newly estimated relationships into leading climate policy models; [3] Analyze optimal policy relative to different objectives that society might endorse. These objectives have numerous broader impacts that include reducing income inequality, alleviating health disparities, ensuring equitable burden sharing between nations, and intergenerational justice.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

空气污染物和温室气体共享排放源，包括通过燃烧化石燃料(煤炭、石油、天然气)。因此，旨在减少温室气体排放的气候政策将产生减少空气污染的“共同效益”。全球每年有数百万人死于空气污染。然而，关于空气质量的这些共同利益可能如何在人群中分配，以及这种分配如何取决于主要气候政策选项之间的选择，人们知之甚少。例如，与关注发电厂的政策相比，交通部门电气化对生活在主要道路附近的人口--往往是少数族裔和社会经济地位较低的人--的影响可能会有很大不同。目前还没有系统的研究对这些关系进行量化，也不清楚执行气候政策的哪些方式最能实现社会的健康和公平目标。该项目将分两步调查这些复杂的社会环境动态。首先，将评估与空气质量相关的不同气候政策的共同效益，以及这些政策将如何对社会经济亚群体的健康产生不同影响。然后，这些信息将被用来研究如何使用包括更广泛系统的其他方面的模型来优化气候政策决策，例如经济和人口变化，以及气候变化本身的影响。人类系统和大气系统密不可分。人类产生排放，排放改变大气，大气反过来影响社会，例如，暴露在空气或水污染中，暴风雨和野火造成的财产损失，以及对农业产量和生态系统的影响。人为排放水平可以通过政策选择来改变，而政策选择本身就是社会和伦理子系统之间相互作用的复杂结果。该项目将对这个高度集成的系统的动态进行建模，重点放在气候政策、空气质量和公平之间的反馈。气候政策的空气质量“协同效益”很重要，因为它们与政策相关，因为这些效益是巨大的、立即开始的，而且是在当地发生的。这些影响在空间或时间上不会在不同地区统一，因此，重要的是确定气候行动如何缓解或加剧现有的空气污染暴露不平等。这些关系将通过新颖的空气质量模型和对领先的成本效益气候政策模型的改进来检验。目标是：[1]进行多尺度模拟，以确定不同气候政策导致的空气质量变化，以及这些变化将如何不同地影响城市、区域和国家内的社会经济亚群；[2]将最新估计的关系纳入主要气候政策模型；[3]分析与社会可能认可的不同目标相关的最优政策。这些目标有许多更广泛的影响，包括减少收入不平等，缓解健康差距，确保国家之间公平分担负担，以及代际正义。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。