Skip to main content
  • Home
  • News & Features
  • Maps & Data
  • Teaching Climate
  • About
  • Contact
  • FAQs
  • Site Map
  • What's New?
  • El Niño & La Niña

Climate news, stories, images, & video (ClimateWatch Magazine)

  • News
  • How the Climate System Works
  • Climate Change & Global Warming
  • Natural Climate Patterns
  • Climate Impacts
  • Observing & Predicting
  • Policy & Planning
  • Extreme Events
  • Home
  • News & Features
  • Images & Video
  • Boston’s ambitious climate plan could save hundreds of lives and billions of dollars each year

Boston’s ambitious climate plan could save hundreds of lives and billions of dollars each year

Author: 
John Dos Passos Coggin
May 19, 2020
Side by side maps of greater Boston area showing avoided mortality and healthcare savings from zero emissions

N&F_Boston_Air_Quality_620.png

Image Credit: 
NOAA Climate.gov
Alternate Versions: 

Boston mortality and health savings (large)

Image icon Boston mortality and health savings (large)
Share This: 
Category: 
Climate Change & Global Warming
Climate Impacts
Policy & Planning
Department: 
Images & Video
Reviewer: 
Mathew Raifman

Avoiding more than 200 deaths a year due to air pollution. Saving close to $2 billion a year in health spending. These are some of the “fringe benefits” Suffolk County, Massachusetts, could reap from the city of Boston’s ambitious plan to become carbon neutral by 2050, according to a research collaboration among NOAA, NASA, and the National Institutes of Health.  

These maps show the annual number of avoided deaths (left) and the healthcare savings (right) that could be reaped in the counties surrounding Boston if air pollution from burning fossil fuels—particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns and ground-level ozone—dropped from 2011 levels to zero just in the city alone. Darker colors mean larger savings of lives and dollars.

The research team, which included scientists at NOAA’s Urban Northeast RISA (CCRUN), estimated that the annual reduction in population-adjusted mortality for Suffolk County would be about 47 per 100,000 people, which works out to 213 avoided deaths per year. Across eastern Massachusetts and its environs, improved air quality would save the region an estimated $2.4 billion per year, and $1.7 billion in Suffolk County alone.

Studies have shown a strong link between particulate matter and heart attacks, respiratory illness, lost productivity, and mortality. Likewise, studies have associated higher levels of ground-level ozone with various adverse health impacts. Reducing burdens on the health care system yields monetary savings, which would help offset the costs of controlling climate change.

The authors of the study chose Boston because it has taken bold climate action. In 2016, the city signed the Metro Mayors Climate Mitigation Commitment, committing to carbon neutrality by 2050 and an interim carbon reduction goal of 50 percent by 2030. From 2013 to 2019, the city ranked as the most energy-efficient city in the nation according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The city is also a member of C40 Cities, a coalition of 94 world cities committed to enacting the Paris Agreement at the local level. Social scientists, economists, and climate scientists are keenly observing the city’s progress on its climate plan and its impacts on Boston’s economic output—an estimated $120 billion in Gross Domestic Product in 2018.

“These findings,” said Mathew Raifman, one of the paper’s authors, “highlight the symbiotic relationship between actions taken to address climate change and human health. In this paper, we examined only the impacts of eliminating emissions from the City of Boston, but other cities in the region are also considering climate action. A natural follow-up would be to examine if concerted action on climate change from multiple cities might have an outsized effect on regional emissions.”

This research was funded in part by NOAA’s Climate Program Office through its Northeast Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) team, one of 11 such teams that NOAA sponsors across the country to help connect people with climate science and services specifically relevant to their region’s economy, communities, and infrastructure.  

Related
Three rows of small maps of NC showing the threshold temperature extreme risk of pre-term birth and the magnitude of risk

Extreme heat increases pregnant women’s risk of pre-term delivery

September 30, 2019

After Sandy: Facing the Future

October 29, 2013
Map of the U.S. with colored dots of increasing size to show changes in mortality rates

National Climate Assessment: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will save thousands of lives in the U.S.

July 22, 2019
Queens heat wave

Protecting People from Sweltering City Summers

August 11, 2015

You Might Like

Malaria risk zones expand to higher elevations in Ethiopian Highlands

September 6, 2017
Map excerpt

In search of cooler waters, marine species are shifting northward or diving deeper

November 3, 2020

2017 Arctic Report Card: Warm summers challenge Bering Sea pollock

December 12, 2017

Longer dry spells in store for U.S. Great Plains

May 19, 2015

climate.gov

  • Home
  • News & Features
  • Maps & Data
  • Teaching Climate
  • About
  • Contact
  • FAQs
  • Site Map
  • What's New?

Follow Climate.gov

Follow us on twitter
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram

Subscription link to sign up for Climate.gov's weekly update newsletter

2014 Webby Award winning website

Webby Award Webby Award

Click each award to learn more

  • Information Quality
  • NOAA Freedom of Information Act
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • USA.gov
  • ready.gov