Co-benefits of climate mitigation and health protection in energy systems: scoping methods

Interventions in the energy sector offer significant opportunities for reducing both greenhouse and other health-damaging pollution, resulting in what are called "co-benefits." The health community plays a critical role in evaluating such interventions to optimize progress of both sorts because both affect health. In detail, analyses require sophisticated modeling and specific local information. As a starting point, however, we offer here a set of scoping methods for obtaining a quick assessment of these co-benefits for interventions in the energy sector, the arena with the highest potential for significant co-benefits. Thus we combine relevant methods developed separately in recent years for cost-effectiveness assessments in the climate change, health, and development communities. We offer sample calculations, which illustrate the apparent high degree of co-benefit effectiveness for targeted interventions in the household energy sector in developing countries.