EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Climate and health damages from global concrete production

Sabbie A. Miller () and Frances C. Moore
Additional contact information
Sabbie A. Miller: University of California
Frances C. Moore: University of California

Nature Climate Change, 2020, vol. 10, issue 5, 439-443

Abstract: Abstract Growing infrastructure needs worldwide have created an unprecedented demand for concrete. Its production results in high GHG emissions, the primary focus of research and mitigation strategies in the sector. However, emissions of air pollutants and the economic burden of resultant health consequences are not yet known. Here, we show worldwide concrete production contributes approximately 7.8% of nitrogen oxide emissions, 4.8% of sulfur oxide emissions, 5.2% of particulate matter emissions smaller than 10 microns and 6.4% of particulate emissions smaller than 2.5 microns. Economic valuation of the damages from these and GHG emissions total ~75% of the cement and concrete industry current value. Commonly discussed GHG emissions mitigation strategies can halve these costs but, under certain scenarios, may increase local air pollution and associated health damages. These findings highlight potential synergies and trade-offs between GHG mitigation and improvements in local air quality, with implications for the political feasibility of different mitigation options.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0733-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:10:y:2020:i:5:d:10.1038_s41558-020-0733-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-020-0733-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:10:y:2020:i:5:d:10.1038_s41558-020-0733-0