Fine-scale Population, Emissions, and Atmospheric Dynamics Driving Health Disparity Outcomes from Energy Transition

Transitioning to a low-carbon energy system can provide air quality and health co-benefits. While the aggregate effects are intuitively clear, the distributions across regions and population groups remain unclear. We use an integrated energy-atmospheric-health modeling framework for the US. We find that the nationwide health effects mainly depend on macro-scale factors, while the disparity outcomes are further affected by micro-scale factors related to emissions, atmospheric processes, and population vulnerability. For instance, just moving from the current spatial pattern of air pollutant emissions to a net-zero 2050 scenario that prioritizes emission reductions near minority populations results in 69% lower exposure disparity between the White and Black populations. Moving from the typical uniform exposure-response relationships to observed race-specific relationships doubles the estimated disparity in PM2.5-attributable death rates between these two groups. Our results highlight the importance of resolving fine-scale patterns to understand the distributional effects of energy transitions on pollution and health.