The Health Impacts of Coal-Fired Power Plants in India and the Co-benefits of Greenhouse Gas Reductions

Under the Paris Agreement, India has pledged that 40 percent of its electricity generating capacity will come from non-fossil-fuel sources by the year 2030; however, this pledge does not limit total coal-fired generating capacity. As of 2019, planned increases in coal-fired capacity totaled 95 gigawatts—46 percent of installed coal-fired capacity in 2018. In this paper, we estimate the carbon dioxide benefits and health co-benefits of not building these plants. We also estimate the mortality impacts of the 2018 stock of coal-fired power plants and use it to calculate the tax on electricity generation from coal that would internalize these damages.