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Basic Information
Many countries are struggling to balance environmental and public health concerns against their priorities for economic development. Day to day, they must work to improve air quality, protect public health, and raise living standards; they must also attempt to minimize long-term risks such as global climate change. Although these problems might seem unrelated, they do overlap: there are strategies that can address both local and global environmental effects.
The IES program promotes integrated planning to address local environmental concerns and also reduce associated global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The program encourages developing countries to analyze and implement policy, technology, and infrastructure measures with multiple public health, economic, and environmental benefits. To date, government agencies and research institutions in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Mexico, the Philippines, and South Korea have participated in the IES program.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has supported the IES projects in India and the Philippines. The U.S Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) provides technical support for the program as well.
Goals and Objectives
There are several goals and objectives of the IES program:
- Provide tools and approaches to help analyze and quantify environmental (air quality and associated GHG), public health, and economic co-benefits in major developing countries
- Improve analytical methods for co-benefits analysis
- Provide the information necessary for consideration of global issues in local energy and environmental policy initiatives
- Build expertise in integrated energy and environmental analysis
- Promote local support for the implementation of measures and policies with multiple benefits
Approach
The IES program uses a country-driven approach. Country programs are tailored to address local and national needs and priorities and build lasting capacity. In-country research teams, guided by policymakers and assisted by U.S. counterparts, identify key policy objectives and a range of conventional and innovative policy measures. The team analyzes the potential co-benefits of selected mitigation strategies and makes recommendations that inform policy decisions.
Analyses of co-benefits have primarily focused on estimating the human health benefits resulting from air quality improvements associated with increased use of clean energy technologies and measures. IES analysis could be extended to quantify additional benefits, such as economic development impacts (e.g., job creation, trade balance) and reduced traffic congestion.
Summary of IES Steps
- PDF of the Flow Chart (1 pp, 264 K, About PDF)
- Scope Project and Build Team
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- Acquire commitment from government host organization.
- Identify technical team, project coordinator, technical leaders, and IES partners.
- Organize formal scoping meeting.
- Develop project work plan outlining the coordination of all project activities.
- Develop Energy/Emissions Scenarios
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- Determine energy sector categories for inclusion.
- Compile base-year emissions inventory.
- Develop baseline and integrated mitigation energy/emissions scenarios.
- Select energy/emissions model.
- Perform fuel consumption and emissions sector survey(s).
- Collect fuel-use data.
- Develop adopt/emissions factors.
- Run model to project future emissions for each scenatio.
- Summarize results for air quality analysis.
- Calculate Atmospheric Concentrations
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- Assess existing ambient air quality.
- Identify target emissions.
- Select air quality model.
- Refine emissions data (from energy/emissions model), if necessary.
- Collect local, historical ambient air quality monitoring data.
- Collect local, historical meteorological data.
- Run model to project future ambient concentrations for each scenario.
- Summarize results for health effects analysis.
- Quantify Public Health Effects
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- Determine health endpoints and analytical methodologies.
- Develop/identify appropriate C-R functions.
- Collect local public health data.
- Perform local epidemiological studies or adapt results.
- Estimate avoided health effects for each scenario.
- Perform uncertainty analysis.
- Summarize results for economic valuation analysis.
- Perform Economic Valuation of Health Benefits
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- Collect economic valuation data.
- Determine appropirate valuation methods.
- Apply selected valuation approaches.
- Perform benefits transfer, if necessary.
- Perform comprehensive valuation analysis.
- Summarize results through a range of valuation scenarios.
- Rank Measures and Share Results
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- Quantify cumulative costs and benefits for each recommendation.
- Develop benefit-cost ratios for each recommendation.
- Prioritize recommended measures based on benefit-cost ratios or other criteria.
- Share project results.
- Identify additional steps to advance implementation.
- Implement Measures
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- Incorporate results into policymaking processes.
- Build support for implementation.
- Institutionalize IES process and results.
- Develop funding proposals.
An Integrated Approach
The IES framework is designed for interdisciplinary, yet independent, technical teams working towards the common goal of identifying cost-effective policies and technologies that produce the desired co-benefits. By dividing the process into individual analyses, each technical team can contribute its expertise to a manageable portion of the project.
The technical team spearheading each analysis performs a number of specific tasks. In some instances, however, a team might not have the resources (data or funding) available to perform each task as suggested. Teams are encouraged to complete as many of the individual tasks as possible, as they lend additional credibility to a project and ultimately contribute to a more sound set of recommended mitigation measures.